


Only The Good Die Young

by Catolyn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Coulson Lives, Darcy & Clint are bros, Darcy & Jarvis are not plotting world domination - though it looks that way sometimes, Darcy & Phil are bros too, Darcy's smarter than people give her credit for, F/M, Gen, Sass, Snark, friendships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-12 15:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 61,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catolyn/pseuds/Catolyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about how Darcy Lewis is recruited by SHIELD, becomes an agent, and uncovers the cover-up after Phil 'dies' before the battle of New York.</p><p>
  <i>Darcy Lewis was a lot of things. Short. Brunette. Nearsighted. Snarky. Busty. Protective. Impulsive. Adaptable. Smarter than she usually let on. And occasionally violent.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>She was not (and if she had her way) never would be anyone’s fool.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Which was why she eyed the stack of forms on the table in front of her with a sense of unease and distrust.</i>
</p><p>Ultimately this is my answer to a bunch of stuff on Tumblr I saw about wanting Darcy as an Agent of SHIELD in the new show coming up. This is how she gets there and how she ends up working for Coulson and with the Avengers.</p><p>(Pairings listed for relationships in later chapters. Rating because of language.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Recruitment

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing, everything belongs to Marvel and Joss is my master.
> 
> Comments and critiques always welcomed.

Darcy Lewis was a lot of things. Short. Brunette. Nearsighted. Snarky. Busty. Protective. Impulsive. Adaptable. Smarter than she usually let on. And occasionally violent.

She was not (and if she had her way) never would be anyone’s fool.

Which was why she eyed the stack of forms on the table in front of her with a sense of unease and distrust. “You want me to do _what_ now Secret Agent Dude?” was her wary question.

Pushing a substantial folder across the table toward her Agent Coulson matter of factly replied, “SHIELD would like to offer you an opportunity to put your unique talents to work among a group of similarly talented and dedicated individuals. We have excellent medical, dental, and vision. I also suspect by the end of your training you’ll never have to pay for cable television again. Personally I find that to be one of the nicer perks.”

Darcy carefully leafed through the first stack of papers, “No, really. Why are you trying to recruit me? Don’t you need people who are all super spy material? Not to bag on myself, but I’m not really ninja material.”

“SHIELD employs a wide range of personnel Miss Lewis.” began Coulson, patiently.

“Okay, first things first. Stop calling me ‘Miss Lewis’. It’s creeping me right the fuck on out. I keep expecting some big black dude to offer me a red or blue pill. Please, can you just call me Darcy? And I can I call you something other than ‘Agent’?”

“Some degree of formality is generally considered appropriate.” replied Coulson dispassionately.

Darcy scrunched up her face at though she’d smelled something nasty, “Screw appropriate. If you want to convince me that I should become a MIB I need something more than ‘appropriate’. I want answers. REAL answers. Not whatever cooked up bullshit you spoon feed the usual yutzes you sign on.”

He paused, “I see. In that case _Darcy_ while we're here you may call me Phil. Once we leave this room I become Agent Coulson again. Is that a fair compromise?”

She nodded briskly, “It’ll do. Now spill why the hiring spiel?”

“I think it’s safe to say that you have seen and experienced things that are well outside the scope of ‘normal’.” Phil began, his voice bland.

She snorted in exasperation, “Is THAT what this is about? I already signed all your crazy NDA’s and I’m sure you’ve had me under surveillance. I can keep my mouth shut, you don’t have to offer me some pity job because I tased Thor.”

He gave her an impassively quelling look, “You have seen and experienced things that are well outside the scope of normal. And trust me, this is NOT a job offer made out of pity. This is a job offer made based on my observations of you in New Mexico.”

“Because _that’s_ not the least bit stalkerish.” she muttered sotto voce.

“You showed resourcefulness when it came to getting Thor out of the hospital. In the face of danger and a very real possibility of injury or death when the Destroyer began causing havoc you ran _toward_ the problem, not away. And its come to our attention that you are remarkably adept with computer systems and have a natural understanding of code breaking.”

“Er. It was only that one time to get Thor an ID.” she said, with a little handwave trying to dismiss having hacked the DMV to create a false driver's license.

Phil just stared at her, clearly not buying the line she was trying to sell.

Deciding silence might keep her out of trouble, well more trouble, Darcy uncharacteristically kept quiet.

“Normally SHIELD recruits new agents from the armed services and other intelligence agencies; usually men and women who’ve had experiences similar to yours. Run ins with things that go bump in the night or from other worlds.” He paused and smiled, “However in certain circumstances when a senior agent, such as myself, discovers a wellspring of untapped potential in a civilian we are authorized to make that individual an offer.”

Darcy rolled her eyes, “Okay Phil, now you sound like the Mafia. ‘We’re gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.’” 

“Your New York accent needs work.” Suddenly changing tactics Phil asked, “Do you have any pending employment offers you are considering?”

Rocking her chair back on its rear legs Darcy groaned, “No, and I’m sure you know it. The economy is still tanked. Graduates from three years ago are just now getting jobs. At the rate things are going I’m going to be waiting tables and slinging coffee ‘till I’m thirty.”

“So why won’t you listen to my offer?” he asked, honestly curious.

“Because I majored in poly sci. I didn’t really see a job with a shadow government agency as part of my future. So I’m resisting what I feel is the inevitable.” and she dropped her chair back on all four legs with a thud. “Come on, give me the whole spiel and give me two days to think about it.”

Phil nodded, his expression thoughtful, “Very well. You’re right, you have no field experience and SHIELD doesn’t like to employ agents who don’t know how to fire a gun. We have an agreement with the agency at Quantico. You’ll be routed through basic FBI training to learn essential combat, firearms, some code breaking, and other useful skills. You’ll be assessed to see if you have any unknown talents or areas of expertise. Once you’ve passed training you’ll be assigned to SHIELD headquarters for advanced training and on the job skills development.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Pardon?”

“What if I’m a total failure? What if I can’t be taught how to safely shoot a gun or I’m a total wash at defending myself?” she asked, gesturing broadly.

Appearing momentarily nonplussed Phil finally replied, “If that happens you’ll be paid your agreed on salary for the time you spent in training and a small severance fee, given a resume reference to a SHIELD shell agency for work done as a media analyst and a letter of recommendation. What you do after that is up to you.”

She looked at him suspiciously, “What’s ‘on the job skills development’ mean?”

Phil looked pleased at her question, “It means that you’ll become my right hand. Eventually you’ll help me run ops logistics.”

Darcy blinked widely at him, “Did you hit your head?”

Blandly he retorted, “I assure you I am entirely non concussed.”

“Okay, because I thought you just said you wanted _me_ working for _you_.”

He nodded, “I do. Darcy, I believe that you are uniquely qualified to assist me in an upcoming operation. I can’t give you any details, you don’t have clearance, but trust me when I say I wouldn’t offer you this if I didn’t think you were the right person for the job.”

Darcy reached for the folders of papers on the table between them. “I’m guessing this can’t leave this room?”

“Right in one. I’ll have Barton bring us lunch in while you read. After that you have forty-eight hours.” and Phil reached into his jacket pocket for his phone. Before he dialed he looked up at Darcy, “Any requests?”

“Anything but pizza, I just finished finals and if I never see pizza again it’ll be too soon.” 

Dialing the phone Phil stood up and began pacing the room. Darcy quietly listened in to the conversation as she began reading, “Coulson here. Can you bring lunch up? Anything but pizza. I’m sure that’ll be fine. Thanks Barton, see you soon.”

“Who’s Barton?” she asked when he was off the phone.

He considered her question a moment before answering, “Specialist Barton was in New Mexico, though I don’t believe you met. Please don’t take anything he says seriously.” 

She nodded and went back to her reading. “Seriously, you have protocol for invading giant squid?”

“It never hurts to be prepared.”

She looked at him as though she expected him to elaborate, but when no further information was forthcoming she hitched herself up to sit cross legged in her chair and went back to reading.

Darcy looked up when the door opened. A boyishly handsome man wearing dark sunglasses and possessed of the most impressive arms she’d seen on a mortal strode in carrying takeout bags from the Chinese place just off campus. “One order of anything but pizza. I wasn’t sure if you were a vegetarian or anything so there’s a mix of stuff in there. Just let me grab my mushu and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Actually Barton, can you sit with Miss Lewis for a while. I have a message from the assistant director I need to return.” he turned to Darcy and nodded before stepping out to the hall.

Shrugging Agent Barton began stacking cartons of food on the table, “You want the chow mein or the curry?”

She pushed the stack of papers to the side and grabbed plates out of one of the bags, “Curry for me Agent Arms.” she slapped a hand over her mouth. Blushing crimson she slowly lowered her hand, “Shit. I have like no brain to mouth filter. Please just kill me before I die of embarrassment.”

Agent Barton hooted with laughter, “Oh, I see why Coulson likes you. I’m Clint.”

She held out her hand and tried not to ogle his muscles as they flexed under his t-shirt when he reached out to shake her hand in return, “Darcy Lewis. Walking verbal disaster.”

“Nice to meet you.” he began to dish rice and fragrant curry on to plates. Jerking his chin toward the stack of papers he asked, “You going to join up?”

“Have I got a choice?” she retorted, wryly.

Shaking his head he handed her a plate, “You’ve always got a choice. Well not always, I didn’t have much of a choice. But you, you’ve got millions of them.” 

Arching an eyebrow at him she asked, “Why didn’t you have a choice?”

He waved his chopsticks at her, “I made a boatload of bad decisions. Coulson and ‘Tasha swear my life's motto is ‘This looks bad, and it feels worse.’” he shrugged and grinned, “But if it doesn’t hurt how do I know I’m having enough fun?”

“That is perhaps one of the more disturbing things I’ve heard another human say.”

He smirked, “Eh, it’s a calling.” 

She looked at him in assessment, “But you still didn’t answer my question. Why didn’t you have a choice?”

“Aforementioned bad choices. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse since I wanted to keep breathing. Well I tried to refuse, but Coulson shot me in the leg.” catching Darcy’s horrified look he spoke quickly trying to reassure her, “It was just a graze, but damned if I didn’t start taking him more seriously. I mean fuck, the guy looks like an accountant. Who takes an accountant seriously, even when they have a gun pointed at you?”

Darcy finished chewing and took a swig of her soda before speaking up again, “My uncle Kevin’s an accountant and he’s six foot four.”

Clint blinked at that tidbit of information, “Okay Coulson looks like a stereotypical accountant.”

Darcy’s chopsticks darted out, stealing a bit of sweet and sour pork off of Clint’s plate, before smirking at him. “What do you do around here?”

“Classified.” he replied, deadpan.

She rolled her eyes, “Well can you at least tell me if you like working for SHIELD?”

Clint paused, thinking about the question, “It’s a hard job, and it isn’t for everyone. You’ll probably never be able to tell anyone outside of SHIELD what you do for a living. It fucks with your dating life. You’re almost always on call, and half the time your vacations will turn into international incidents. But we have the best toys. We take care of our own. It becomes a home away from home. Or just home.” He served himself more noodles out of a container and pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head. He met her bright blue gaze with his own paler grey eyes, “I won’t tell you what to do. But I saw how you tried to help people in New Mexico. Under all that the fear and the ‘Oh god, oh god, we’re all gonna die.’ how did it feel to step up and get people out of the way?” 

He would have said more, but the door opened and Phil came back in, “Barton you and Romonoff are wheels up in thirty, meet the logistics team at the airfield.”

Clint shoved his plate back and tipped his glasses back down over his eyes, “Got it boss.” He grinned rakishly at Darcy, “Hope to see you around kid.” 

By the end of the afternoon Darcy’s head was reeling, on paper it looked like an awesome opportunity if she overlooked the possibility of having to maybe shoot someone some day.

When she’d asked Phil about that he’d simply said, “I can’t promise you won’t ever have to use your weapon to defend yourself or someone under your protection. I can promise you that you’ll receive as much training as possible so you’re able to make that call.”

As answers went it wasn’t terribly reassuring, but it was honest. She appreciated honesty.

That night when she went to bed she dreamed about New Mexico and the Destroyer. In the dream instead of helping clear the street she’d fled and when she looked back over her shoulder to see if Erik, Jane, and Thor were following here they were crumpled in the street, bleeding and broken.

She woke with a jerk and a stifled scream. Laying in bed Darcy tried to remember how to breathe evenly. She checked the time, _Ugh, five am._ and tried go back to sleep. Sleep which eluded her. Eventually she threw back the covers and padded to her little desk. On top of her computer was a business card that simply said on one side, “Philip J. Coulson, Logistics Division” and a phone number. On the other side was a handwritten note, “Call anytime with your answer.”

Taking a deep breath she picked up her phone and dialed, just as she was sure she was about to go to voicemail the call was answered, “Miss Lewis, to what do I owe the pleasure of your early call?”

“I’m in. I’ll sign up for spy camp and if I don’t wash out, which I’m still not convinced of, I’ll be your girl Friday.” she said in a rush.

“I’m pleased to hear that. A courier will be by at fifteen hundred hours with your hiring paperwork. Be ready to move by the end of next week, you'll be staying in SHIELD housing near Quantico while you're in training. I’ll be in touch from time to time to check in.” 

“Hey Phil?” 

“Yes Miss Lewis?”

“Please don’t keep calling me Miss Lewis. It’s still creepy.” she informed him tartly.

He laughed, “Have a good day Darcy, I’ll check in on you after you’ve begun training.” and he disconnected the call.

Darcy put her phone down and decided now was as good a time as any to begin packing.


	2. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy's doing well in her training at Quantico, but all work and no play makes Darcy a cranky girl. Flirting and snark ensue with a fellow classmate as well as a guest appearance by Clint being a friendly jerkface. He's really very good at being a friendly jerkface.

“Lewis! You’re late!” yelled Agent McGuire, a tall, whipcord thin woman with olive skin and long straight black hair that fell to her waist.

Darcy slid into the chair at her terminal in the training room and shoved her glasses up her nose. “Sorry boss, I had to go get my glasses. I lost a contact in hand to hand.” 

McGuire glared and handed her a folder before striding purposefully to the front of the room, “Listen up cadets, pop quiz time! Each of you has a segment of encrypted data. You also have analytics on that encryption. The data that’s encrypted could be text, it could be numerics. You need to decrypt the data, tell me what it is, and how you’d use it based on the scenario in your folder. You have forty-five minutes. Any questions?”

Darcy’s hand shot up in the air and she had to suppress the desire to smirk at McGuire’s eyeroll. “Yes Lewis?”

Speaking quickly she fired off her questions, “Solo or team? Does anyone else in this room have something I need? Is there anything in the analytics that suggests what type of data we’re supposed to be dealing with? Will the scenarios help us with the encryption? Single or double encryption? Are we allowed coffee?”

McGuire looked around the room looking for other raised hands before she answered Darcy’s barrage of questions. Seeing no other hands raised she replied as quickly as Darcy had spoken, “Solo. No. That’s what they’re there for. I’m not telling. It’s a test Lewis, you’re being tested, figure it out. The pots fresh. You have forty-five minutes starting from now.” and she set the timer on her watch.

There was a flurry of activity as people opened folders and booted terminals. Darcy pulled her iPod out of her jacket pocket, put in her earbuds, and picked her electro swing playlist before opening her folder. 

Reading her analytics Darcy got up from her station to fetch herself a cup of coffee. Steaming hot caffeinated nirvana in hand she turned to make her way back to her desk and nearly ran headlong into her classmate, Caleb Nguyen. Coffee sloshed over the edge of her mug, scalding her hand. “Ow, shit!” she exclaimed, quickly putting her mug down and grabbing a napkin. “Make more noise next time, you’re quieter than my dad’s cat.” 

“Sorry about that. Here.” Caleb handed her another napkin so she could mop up the spilled coffee on the floor.

Darcy picked up her mug again and gave him a lopsided smile, “Only mild harm, so only a minor foul. If you want you can make it up to me Friday.”

He grinned widely, “Deal.” 

McGuire’s snapped, “Lewis! Nguyen! Stop fraternizing and start working!”

Darcy mouthed “Later.” at Caleb before rolling her eyes and bustling back to her desk.

Tapping her foot to the music she dug into the lines of data and began making notes. It didn’t take long for her to discover that whatever the data was, it was complex lines of numbers without any text. Deciding that the obvious choice would be longitudinal coordinates she began working. After a few minutes she paused, something didn’t look right. Leafing back through the packet she reread scenario she was supposed to solve and slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand, “Duh!” she exclaimed, earning a dirty look from some of her fellow classmates.

Her fingers flew over the keys. Several minutes later she was rewarded with rows of neatly decrypted numbers. Grinning she printed her results and hopped up to hurry to the printer. She sauntered up to Agent McGuire and handed in her work with ten minutes to spare. McGuire gave her an archly assessing look that conveyed her disbelief. Darcy just grinned and bounced on the balls of her feet. 

McGuire reviewed the work and grudgingly ground out, “Good work Lewis.” She handed the folder back to Darcy. “Take a seat.”

The rest of the session drug by as Agent McGuire quizzed everyone on their process and progress. Making each trainee justify their work.

Finally she dismissed the small group of trainees to lunch.

Darcy was making her way to the cantina when Caleb caught up to her, “Hey! So that was brutal. How’d you figure it out so quickly?”

“I am a huge computer nerd.” she admitted with a shrug. “It was numbers so at first I thought it was locations, but it didn’t make sense with scenario. IP addresses fit so I used that and ran with it. I just got lucky I was right. I’d have been fucked if it really was coordinates.”

He grinned playfully at her, “So, Friday?”

Looking at him sidelong she smirked in return, “You asking me out? Isn’t that against regulation?”

“Funny, you don’t really strike me as the kind of girl who gives a lot of fucks about regulations.” he mocked.

She placed a hand over her heart and gave him her best innocent look, “Why Caleb, I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about.”

He bumped his shoulder against hers, “So, Friday?”

“Friday.” she affirmed with a little thrill. “Meet you at seven at the Standard?”

“It’s a date!” he replied with a wink and jogged off.

Darcy shook her head ruefully. She and Caleb had been dancing around each other since she’d arrived at Quantico several weeks earlier. He ran to the leanly athletic side of things rather than the ripped muscles and impressive physique of Thor (or even Clint). He had a sense of humor as sharply wicked as hers. She honestly enjoyed his company and kept thinking that it was nice he wasn’t too tall because it meant she wouldn’t have to break her neck to kiss him; or wear ridiculously impractical shoes.

She walked into the cantina with a spring in her step, glad it was already Thursday.

Friday, a little before seven, found Darcy perched on a stool in the Standard Arms, a brew pub not far from her small studio apartment. She’d had just enough time after training to hurry home and change, ditching her drab pants and suit jacket for a dark red wrap dress and heels she could stand, walk, and run in. She firmly agreed with her older brothers, never wear shoes that meant you couldn’t outrun the zombie apocalypse. She’d even taken a few minutes to spruce up her makeup and take her hair down from it’s ponytail.

She swung a foot back and forth as she sipped her froofy drink, waiting for Caleb. 

Darcy felt the barest whisper of movement behind her and whipped around, about to tease Caleb again for his cat like manner when she came face to face with Clint. Thoroughly startled she exclaimed, “What are you doing here?!”

Grinning he gestured to the bartender, “Getting a drink and saying hello. You’re all dolled up.” he commented.

She stuck out her tongue, “All work and no play makes Darcy a bitchy girl. Just because I’ve signed on doesn’t mean I’ve agreed to give up all my fun.”

“Good for you.” Clint affirmed and tapped the edge of his glass to hers. “Cheers. How’re things going?”

She scoffed, “Here to check up on me for Phil?”

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see how you were doing.”

Darcy smiled, relaxing slightly, “Thanks. Things are good. I’m doing better than I thought I would.”

“Yeah? Get over your freakout over firing a gun?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes, “It was just that first time. I was shaking so hard I couldn’t even hit the target and I was terrified they were just going to kick me out then and there.”

He took a long pull of his beer, “Why did you call me? I never asked.”

“Somehow I ended up with your number in my phone.” Clint smirked at her. “Anyway, I didn’t want to bother Phil, but after the disaster I made of my first shooting lesson I had to ask if there was something I could do so I wouldn’t freak out so badly. You seemed like someone I could ask.”

Clint nodded, “I’ve been shooting since I was in grade school, the first thing I learned was to control your breathing and everything else works out.” He looked past her shoulder, “I think your date’s here. Because there’s an asian guy staring daggers at me by the door.”

Darcy playfully punched Clint in the bicep and fondly said, “Jerk.” before turning around and waving gladly at Caleb who joined them at the bar.

“Hey Darcy, who’s your friend?” inquired Caleb, neutrally.

“Caleb, Clint. Clint, Caleb. Clint’s a friend? Co-worker? Of the guy who convinced me to explore my untapped potential by joining the Bureau. He just stopped by to say hi.” reassured Darcy as she placed a hand on Caleb’s arm.

Clint smiled and stuck out his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

Shaking his hand Caleb smiled in return, “It’s a pleasure.”

Grabbing his beer Clint slid off his stool, “Anyway, I’ll leave you crazy kids alone. I just wanted to see how Darcy was doing. Cheers!” and he saluted them with his glass before moving off into the Friday night crowd.

Darcy grinned and hugged Caleb briefly, “So, you owe me a drink, but I’ve already had one. Do you want to go get dinner at that new Italian place?”

He offered her his arm with an impish smile, “Sounds like a plan, I’m starving.”

She tossed back the rest of her drink, left a couple dollars on the bar for a tip, and tucked her arm through Calebs. “Lay on McDuff!”

Over dinner Darcy regaled Caleb with stories of being the middle child, and only daughter, in a family of five. “My older and younger brothers are twins,” she explained, “and I was a ‘whoops’ baby that they weren’t really planning on. But when I was three my folks realized that Jake and Nate were too attached to each other to really play with me. So they decided to try for number four so I’d have a brother or sister who actually liked me. Only they got four and five, Troy and Neil. I am pretty sure fate hates me.”

“So what’s up with your name?” Caleb asked. “Your brothers have incredibly _normal_ names, where did your parents get Darcy from?”

“Augh! It was one of those respectable ‘family names’ and mom is BIG on family continuity and naming us after ancestors. I’m actually pretty thankful my name is Darcy, the other candidates were ‘Daisy’, ‘Brenda’, and ‘Ethel’.” she shuddered dramatically. “‘Ethel’ can you imagine?! Darcy may be odd, but at least it doesn’t make me sound like someones spinster aunt with too many cats.”

Over a shared piece of tiramisu Caleb told her about growing up as an army brat. “Both my parents were in the service, mom was the army and dad was in the air force. Which made things interesting. We moved around a lot, and sometimes I’d start the school year at the base where my mom was stationed and end the year at the base where dad was.”

“That must have made holidays and stuff a drag.” commented Darcy.

He shrugged and took a bite of the dessert, “It was, but it wasn’t you know? When moving around like that is all you know it becomes the baseline normal. When mom mustered out after I was twelve, it took me awhile to adjust to not moving every few months.”

They finished their meal and Caleb paid the bill before she could get her wallet out of her purse. “No fair.” she declared.

He smiled, disarmingly, “Nah, it’s good, beside, I said I’d make it up to you.”

“It’s early still, what are your thoughts on cheesy action movies?” she asked.

Caleb paused and appeared to consider the question before looking at her sidelong and asking in return,“‘Die Hard’ cheese or ‘Fast and the Furious’ cheese?” 

“Either really, I just like movies with little basis in reality where things blow up.” she quipped.

Laughing Caleb teased, “A girl after my own heart.”

They ended up on the small couch in her apartment, feet on the coffee table, as they watched a ridiculous Jason Statham movie on her laptop. As they watched she shifted closer to Caleb’s warmth, eventually his arm curled around her shoulders, his fingers gently stroking the skin of her arm.

During an unintentionally hilarious chase scene Darcy looked up and asked, “So are you going to kiss me or do I need to kiss you?”

With his free hand Caleb cupped her face and he leaned down to capture her lips. When his tongue brushed against her lips she opened her mouth with a pleased sigh as a frisson of pleasure ran down her spine.

Their kiss grew more heated before Caleb drew back slightly, sweeping his thumb across her cheekbone, his expression serious, “I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks.” he confessed.

“Yeah?” she asked, her voice low and breathless.

“Yeah.” he replied and kissed her again, drawing her close with the arm around her shoulders.

Darcy combed her fingers through the short black hair at the nape of his neck, and chuckled into their kiss when she felt him shiver.

“Tease.” Caleb accused.

She smirked, “It’s not teasing if I want to follow through is it?” and she stood up, holding a hand out to him.

Grinning he took her hand and let her pull him to his feet, “So, not to be a buzzkill,” he began as he settled his hands at her waist, “but is this a one time offer or is this us starting something?”

Darcy caught her lower lip between her teeth and looked at him through her lashes, “I was hoping that this was us starting something. I like you. I’m not saying we should be picking out china, but I like you and that seems like a good start.”

He slid a hand into her hair and murmured, “I like you too.” before slanting his mouth over hers in a hungry kiss.

Darcy decided the advantage of a studio apartment was that she didn’t have to point out which way her bed was. 

Quite sometime later she decided the advantage of a studio apartment was that she didn’t have to go far to get them a glass of water after they were exhausted and sweaty from exertion.

She curled herself against Caleb’s side and rested her head on his shoulder, “I really wasn’t planning on jumping you tonight.”

He chuckled quietly, “It seems pretty stupid of me to complain. And I really have been trying to work up the nerve to ask you out.”

Darcy sat up a little, propping herself up on an elbow, “Am I _that_ intimidating?”

“I heard about what you did to Taylor.” he replied, “A guy hears things like that and he gets a little cautious.”

She scoffed, “Taylor needed an object lesson in keeping his hands to himself. He should be thankful I’m the one who gave it to him instead of McGuire or Patel. They’d have killed him instead of kicking him in the nuts.”

He sat up and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, “I’m not arguing with you, Taylor’s a prick.” He kissed her shoulder again, “Should I go or stay tonight?”

Smiling she kissed him again, “Stay. Morning sex is awesome and I know a great breakfast place we can hit up tomorrow.”

Chuckling he pulled her toward him, “Morning sex hmmm? I can be convinced.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes this will eventually be Darcy/Steve, but for this chapter she's a healthy, well adjusted woman in her early 20's who is attracted to someone and wants to have sex and maybe a relationship with them.


	3. Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on in the way of life. Darcy get's some news about her ongoing training and has to make a decision about her relationship with Caleb. Does Darcy really want to know what McGuire means when she says _"Oh, Phil and I go back a ways."_?
> 
> She also calls Jane's new assistant and terrorizes him.
> 
> Next stop SHIELD.

Life at Quantico had taken on a predictable pattern for Darcy. Mornings were spent in combat and arms training where she had developed a respectable proficiency. Afternoons were classes on data decryption and encryption, advanced systems manipulation (hacking), and linguistics recognition. Surprisingly she’d demonstrated an unexpected knack for picking up languages; at least in their written forms. Everyone agreed it would just be better if she stopped trying to speak French.

By mutual agreement she and Caleb had kept their relationship as inconspicuous as possible. She was fairly sure that McGuire knew exactly what was going on, but neither of them had been called on it. 

Once the initial rush of new relationship energy had passed things with Caleb seemed to ebb. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him, she did, but after four, almost five, months she was having trouble imagining falling in love with him. 

She felt badly, but given a certain hesitancy on his part she wondered if maybe he didn’t feel the same way. It had been easy to ignore, but now sitting in McGuire’s office Darcy realized she was going to have to resolve that one way or another, and soon.

McGuire handed her a folder and said, “I’m sorry the FBI is only training you on behalf of SHIELD. Is there anyway I can convince you to come to the Bureau on a permanent basis?”

Darcy glanced at the pages of her recent scores, “No ma’am, I’m sorry. Agent Coulson wants me as his assistant on a specific project.”

The older woman sighed and nodded, “I thought as much, you’re bright and unusually good at analyzing emergent situations. I can see why Phil wants you for his team. Here,” and she handed Darcy another envelope, “That’s a plane ticket to California, you’re departing in five days. Pack up your apartment; arrangements will be made to have your belongings shipped to temporary storage in New York while you’re attending the training sessions that Phil wants you to complete before you go to SHIELD HQ.”

She tucked the ticket in to the larger folder and looked up to make eye contact with the senior agent, “Ma’am, may I ask a question?” 

McGuire nodded and gestured for Darcy to continue.

“How do you know about SHIELD? Before I arrived here Agent Coulson said that I shouldn’t share that I was training for SHIELD.”

She smiled fondly, which Darcy found exceedingly disconcerting, “Oh, Phil and I go back a ways. Years ago when he was first working for SHIELD and I was a rookie field agent with the FBI we ended up on the same strange case. We did a lot of interdepartmental dick waving at each other before we both pulled our heads out of our asses and realized that we were both really on the same side.” McGuire chuckled ruefully, “I was very attached to the idea of the culprit being tried in a federal court of law, Phil was a bit more pragmatic since it looked like the person of interest in our case might be able to walk through walls. After all was said and done Phil tried to recruit me for his division. I turned him down, but my knowledge of SHIELD put me in the position of becoming an unofficial liaison.”

Darcy nodded, “Thank you.” She tapped the folder and plane ticket in her hand against her thigh, “I should probably get going. If I’m going to California I’ll need to get packing. Do I report for training before I leave?”

McGuire shook her head, “Not for the afternoon sessions, but you’ll still be required to attend combat sessions in the morning hours.”

Standing, Darcy smiled, “Thank you very much ma’am. I appreciate all your help.”

“I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you around Lewis.” replied McGuire, standing and seeing Darcy to the door.

Darcy left the building and made her way back to her apartment to begin packing after making stops to pick up boxes, bubble wrap, and tape. She unloaded her packing materials and assessed her small studio. She’d rented a partially furnished apartment so there wasn’t much to pack that would go in storage. Most of her books and movies were still in boxes in her parents garage. She had a few mementos that she’d collected while she was studying at Culver, a couple of posters she’d bought at Ikea to brighten up the place, and an eclectic assortment of brightly colored throw pillows she’d tossed on the small sofa that had come with the apartment. She sighed and started to assemble a box, trying to not feel too depressed at her lack of worldly possessions. 

She’d finished packing up the few books and movies she did have when her phone rang; guiltily she realized it was Caleb calling. She debated letting it go to voice mail for a moment before calling herself several kinds of coward and answered her phone. “Hey.” she said in greeting.

“Hey, I looked all over for you this afternoon and couldn’t find you. Is everything alright?” he asked, concerned.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I got sent home early, I’ll tell you about it at dinner. Thai or Indian?” 

“Can I talk you into Vietnamese? I found a new place I want to try.” he asked sounding hopeful.

She shrugged, “Sounds good, should I meet you there or can you swing by to pick me up?”

“Why don’t I pick you up? That way we only have one car. Seven good?”

She smiled, despite things not being quite where she’d hoped with Caleb, she still enjoyed spending time with him, “Seven’s great. I kind of have some news I want to tell you about.”

“Good news?” he asked, curious.

“Well good in the long run.” she hedged. “I’ll tell you all about it at dinner okay?”

“Sounds good sweetheart, I’ll see you at seven.” and they ended the call

Darcy set her phone down and sighed again. On the one hand she didn’t want to break up with Caleb, she liked him and the sex was always fun; but on the other she really didn’t see a long distance relationship working out between them. “Being an adult sucks.” she grumbled as she assembled another box to pack.

She packed another few boxes and stacked them against the wall before deciding to call Jane. “Doctor Foster’s office.” answered a bored sounding male voice Darcy didn’t recognize.

She greeted the unfamiliar voice cheerfully, “Hello new minion! This is Darcy, is the doc around?”

There was a moment or two of incoherent sputtering before the other voice demanded, “Who are you?”

“Dude, relax. Revel in your minion-ness. Janie is a benevolent dictator and I know you probably just do data entry for her. Now is she there or did she pass out on her desk with a pop tart in her hand again?”

There was an extended pause before the person at the other end sighed, “Doctor Foster isn’t in the lab right now. She was here for four days solid and the notes from the last assistant included instructions on how to lock her out of the lab if she worked for more than three days in a row. I thought those notes were a joke.” finished the voice, plaintively.

“You let her work for four days?!” squawked Darcy, indignantly. “You are SO lucky Culver’s a three hour drive from me or I’d be kicking down that door and tasing your ass so hard. I left those notes for a reason! If you let Jane work more than three days without resting her maths go all to shit and the data becomes completely useless!” she stomped her foot for emphasis, it wasn’t an effective intimidation tactic, but it did make her feel better.

There was another pause, “I’m sorry.” said the plaintive voice. “I didn’t know she was so... focused. I just thought she didn’t have an assistant because she’d been on assignment in New Mexico.”

Darcy sighed, she couldn’t really stay too mad at the poor guy, he was probably poor some unsuspecting sophomore who had no skills at wrangling stubborn scientists who didn’t know how to take care of themselves. “Look, I’ll give you a pass. This ONE time. I used to be Jane’s dedicated minion so I know how hard she can be. Read my notes and learn. I left them for a reason. No matter how odd anything sounds please assume I wrote it down for a reason.”

She heard a sudden inhalation and interrupted before he could say anything, “Yes, even that bit about spiders. Actually _especially_ that bit about spiders. What’s your name kid?” she asked, the irony of calling someone only a few years younger ‘kid’ was not lost on her.

“Brian.” answered the voice on the other end of the line.

Darcy put on her best reassuring voice that she used to use on her little brothers during thunder storms, “Okay Brian, here’s what you’re going to do. Take whatever stack of data Jane dumped on you before you managed to get her to stagger out of the lab and put it aside. Make Jane review it when she gets back. If she really went four days without sleep a lot of it is going to be total crap and it’ll screw up her computations to have that data in the tables. Got it?” 

“Got it.” 

“Great. Now get your keys, your phone, and your personal laptop, and leave the lab. Lock the door behind you. Go down to the student union, get some,” she checked the time, “dinner. After dinner go collapse or do whatever you need to do. And here take down my number.” and she rattled off her cell number. “If Jane starts getting out of hand again, call me. I might be able to run an intervention over the phone.”

Stammering Brian began to thank her.

“It’s okay Bry, just don’t let it happen again, or so help me Thor I will come back to Culver and kick you in the knees. Got it?” she asked forcefully.

“Got it!”

“Good.” she huffed, and hung up.

Shaking her head she fired off a quick text message to Jane, chiding her former boss for unhealthy work habits and for terrorizing her new intern.

She checked the time and took a minute to run a brush through her hair before grabbing her purse and stepping outside to wait for Caleb to pick her up. Flopping down on her front step she pulled her phone out and tried to compose a Facebook update to tell her friends she was moving to California for a little while. Internally she groused that having a somewhat classified job made using social media difficult. Somehow she got the feeling that Phil wouldn’t really care very much about her first world problems about not being able to tell people what she really did; and it wasn’t as though she didn’t know before she signed on with SHIELD.

She was still trying to compose a status message when the sound of a horn honking startled her and she jerked her head up. Jumping up Darcy trotted over to the car as Caleb leaned across the passenger side to open the door for her. Sliding into the seat she smiled and leaned toward him for a brief kiss hello, “Howdy handsome. What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”

He grinned rakishly, “Picking up a hot chick.” and he winked.

Darcy snorted in amusement, “It’s a good thing you’re cute because that line is as stale as the meatloaf in the cantina.”

Caleb mock winced, “Ouch Darce, that hurts.”

“I’ll kiss it and make it better.” she said with a pout.

“Threat or a promise?”

“Which do you prefer?” and she gave him a lascivious leer.

They both began laughing. Their quick banter was one of the things that Darcy liked so much about their relationship. Neither one of them took the things the other said too seriously as long as they were both smiling.

As they pulled away from the curb Caleb asked, “So, what’s your news?”

Darcy bit her lip, tugging it a moment between her teeth, “I’m being sent to a training station in California for advanced training.”

There was a long pause, “Why California?” 

She sighed, she’d been worrying all afternoon about what she should (could) tell her boyfriend about the department she would eventually be working for. Coulson had warned her against sharing information about SHIELD, but she liked and respected Caleb; the thought of lying to him left her feeling queasy and angry. Finally she answered, “Because I’m not going to be an FBI agent. That’s not what I’m here for.”

He slowed for a stop sign and glanced over at her, “What are you doing in FBI training if you aren’t going to be an agent? What’s the point?”

Carefully she weighed her words, “I said I wasn’t going to be an FBI agent, I didn’t say I wasn’t going to be working for another department.”

They drove along in silence for a while before he stopped the car out front an unfamiliar restaurant and cut the engine. He turned in his seat and looked at her, his brow furrowed. “I don’t understand Darcy.”

“About eight months ago something happened. Something I _can’t_ tell you about. It was bizarre and freaky and I nearly died. Afterwards I went back to Culver and graduated. Once I had my diploma a... a representative from a department called SHIELD came to see me to offer me a job.”

“SHIELD’s not real Darcy,” he interjected. “They’re just some boogeyman under the bed they use to scare junior agents with. It sounds like you got recruited by an agent with a really mean sense of humor.”

She blinked, surprised that he’d heard of SHIELD at all, much less that he was so dismissive of them. “I... Please believe me? SHIELD is real. And that’s why I’m here. They want me because someone thinks I’ll be good at cat wrangling other people and are willing to overlook my bad habit of basically saying the first thing that I think of.”

Caleb was quiet. Finally he asked, “Are you breaking up with me?”

Darcy cringed, this was the part of the conversation she’d hoped to put off. “I like you a lot. I really do. But I don’t know how long I’ll be in California, it could be a couple of weeks or a year. I don’t know yet. I’ve never been very good at long distance relationships.” She took his hand, her expression pleading, “I like you. I like spending time with you and talking. It’s great that you’re as geeky as I am. The sex is awesome. But I feel like we’re just not clicking on some level we should be, and it seems like a bad idea to go into a long distance thing if that’s the case.”

He looked down at their entwined fingers and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before smiling, wryly. “It’s stupid. My feelings are hurt because you’re breaking up with me, but yesterday I was thinking I needed to talk to you about how I loved spending time with you, but I wasn’t in love with you.”

“And here I was thinking how much being a grown up sucked, being all thoughtful and shit in my relationships.” mourned Darcy

“You are positively ancient.” Caleb deadpanned.

“Ancient or not, can we still have loud breakup sex and piss off my neighbors?”

He gave a startled laugh, “This would be different from the sex we already have how?”

“Um... we’d be saying goodbye with no hard feelings?” 

Caleb caught the question that she seemed too uncertain to ask, that he wasn’t going to hold their break up and her career against her. Pulling her hand up to his mouth he kissed the back of it. “No. No hard feelings. Come on. Let’s get dinner and you can tell me about the department that doesn’t exist that you’re supposed to go work for.”

“I don’t know how much I can really tell you.” she hedged. 

He made a face, “Can you at least tell me what SHIELD stands for?”

“Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division.” was her immediate reply. Catching the clearly skeptical look she chuckled, “Agent Coulson says we’re working on that. I have no idea what he means.

“It really sounds like someone just wanted your initials to spell SHIELD.” he said as they got out of the car.

“Yeah, I thought that too when he first told me what it stood for. Coulson swears I’ll find out what it really means once I have my clearance levels. But I think he was just trying to fuck with me. He’s sneaky like that.”

Dinner passed with Caleb trying to get a sense of what SHIELD was all about with Darcy trying to avoid answering anything about what happened in New Mexico or why a secretive government entity wanted to employ her fresh out of college badly enough they were willing to send her through FBI training first. Truthfully she was still fuzzy on that latter point.

He drove her back to her apartment and they sat in the car a minute before Darcy finally spoke up, “So are we cool? As cheesy as it sounds, I really do want us to be friends if we can.”

Caleb slid a hand into her hair, his fingers resting on the back of her neck, and leaned into kiss her gently. “We’re ‘cool’ Darcy. I won’t lie, I really was hoping for something more with you, but I’ll be happy to have you as a friend.”

She reached out and smoothed her fingers across his cheekbone, “Thank you. Do you want to come in?”

“I want to, but I think I’d better head home. Let’s have dinner again before you leave. I’ll give you a proper goodbye then.” 

“I’ll hold you to that.” 

“I know you will. Get some sleep Darcy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” and he kissed her on the cheek.

She slid out of the car and closed the door behind her, waving at him as she unlocked her door and let herself in.

Pulling off her oversized sweater and dropping it on the couch she stumbled to her bed and lay down. She felt understandably relieved, but she couldn’t fully account for the heavy feeling that knowing her relationship with Caleb had ended brought for her.

Reaching for her phone she fired off a text message to her eldest brother, Nate, **Work’s sending me to LA for training for a while. Think you can make some time for your favorite sister?**

She’d nearly drifted off to sleep when her phone buzzed, **You’re my ONLY sister. Call me when you know where you’ll be staying. We’ll work something out. Jake’s supposed to be visiting soon too. Be good. And if you can’t be good, be sneaky.**

She smiled at her brother’s message before curling up to to sleep.


	4. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy arrives in LA, receives a cryptic message from Clint, meets her brothers for lunch, and Coulson is mysterious on the phone.
> 
> Sibling snark and Darcy sassing Coulson feature prominently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--  
> Augh, this was a lot longer and then I realized this needed to be its own thing because the next chapter is going to be all the things and this didn't flow well in to that as all one chapter.  
> \--  
> Due to authorial privilege I've tweaked the MCU timeline; the events of Thor are about nine months before the events of the Avengers. Which we're about to run headlong into.  
> \--

Darcy stepped out of the Los Angeles airport into the blazing sun and what felt like a wall of heat. She fumbled her purse open, grabbed her glasses case out of her bag, and did an awkward juggling routine as she switched her regular glasses for her large dark sunglasses. Sighing in relief she followed the signs to the passenger pickup area to wait for her brother.

While she waited she checked her phone for messages. She had a cryptic text from Clint, **I hate the desert.** He never told her where exactly he was, but from time to time she’d get random pictures, frequently of odd looking food, or some scathing commentary about how the weather where he was sucked. She generally found the messages reassuring even if he rarely answered her replies.

She also had a message from Caleb, **Kick ass, take names, and don’t forget your bubblegum.** She smiled, once again happy they’d parted on such amiable terms. 

The last message was from Coulson, which surprised her. He usually called if he was going to check up on her; despite her teasing that he might be an android and texting made more sense, he said he preferred the personal touch of a phone call. **Please call this evening after 1900 local.**

She’d just finished firing off replies to all the messages and sending another one to Jane, who she hadn't heard from in a couple of days, when a small grey sedan pulled up to the curb, the passenger door opened and her brother Jake clambered out of the car. “Jake!” she exclaimed, “What are you doing here?”

His near mirror image got out of the drivers side grinning, “I’m trying to seduce him to the dark side of the country. California is SO much better than Ohio. Less snow.” Nate came around the car to squish her in a hug between them.

Jake and Nate were a fairly average five foot ten, which still meant they had six inches on her; and had since they were sixteen and she was twelve. They had the classic Lewis bright blue eyes, wavy dark hair, and the compact builds of swimmers. Some people had trouble telling them apart, but Darcy had never had any problems. 

Jake eyed her small pile of luggage, “Geeze Darce, got enough junk?”

“Nope, you don’t fit in a suitcase.” she snarked.

“Brat.”

“Bully.”

They’d have carried on their playful name calling session if Nate hadn’t interrupted, “Since I don’t feel like getting arrested today can we get your stuff in the car before the TSA comes and shoots us all?”

Darcy snorted and lugged her largest case to the back of the car, “Wuss. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Remaining unshot.” was his dry reply.

The Lewis siblings cheerfully snipped and snarked at each other as they loaded Darcy’s suitcases in the trunk of Nate’s car. As they pulled away from the airport Nate asked, “So what’s on the agenda for the day?”

“First off, food. All I’ve had today is two cups of shitty airplane coffee and a packet of stale peanuts. After that I’m up for whatever really. I have to check in with my boss at seven though. He’s expecting me to call.”

Jake twisted around in his seat and asked, “So what are you doing anyway?”

Taking a deep breath Darcy smiled and gave her brothers the cover story she and Coulson had spent time working on and building up so it would stand up to scrutiny from her family, “I’m working as a media analyst for a small advertising firm. They sent me to California for a conference and to talk to some clients about how they would like to start using social media. You know how to make boring ass old people companies look interesting to people like us.”

Nate coughed, “Nerd.”

She lightly swatted the back of his head. “Hey, our generation changed the face of media. Own it. Don’t knock it.”

“Seriously Darce, I thought you were going to go become some high rolling campaign manager and get smarmy assholes elected. I mean, is that what political science is for?” asked Jake.

Stifling a sigh she settled back further in her seat, lying to her brothers wasn’t something she liked doing, even if she had become adept at it in high school. “A lot of politics is about media. I’m good with media. And this was the job I got offered. So...” and she shrugged as if to say _What do you expect?_ “Not all of us can be up and coming photographers like Nate, or hot shot legal eagles like you. I wanted to be able to pay my student loans _and_ eat. I’m just that kind of crazy.” Mentally she crossed her fingers, hoping her brothers would drop it. 

Her explanation was apparently enough to pass muster because the conversation quickly moved on to their options for a late lunch.

It was nearly seven when her brothers finally dropped her off at her hotel. By the time she was checked in and to her room it was already five after seven. Groaning she hit her speed dial for Coulson.

The line rang several times before he answered with a brisk, “You’re late.”

She winced and began apologizing, “Sorry boss. My brothers picked me up from the airport and since they couldn’t make my graduation, lunch turned into kind of a thing.”

“I wasn’t aware you had more than one brother in the greater Los Angeles area.” replied Coulson.

Darcy held the phone between her shoulder and ear and she stripped off her shoes. “Jake’s visiting from Ohio. I guess he’s thinking about going for his California bar exam so he can practice law out here instead of back home.”

Coulson made a vague sound of acknowledgement and changed topics, “Tomorrow morning an agent will collect you from your hotel and bring you to the LA SHIELD offices. You’ll start going through your new clearance qualifications. After that’s completed you’ll have some logistics assignments. Simple stuff to get you used to how we do things. We may be dealing with an accelerated timeline for the project I want to bring you in on.”

“How accelerated is accelerated?” she asked pulling a clean change of clothes out of her luggage. Travel was disgusting and a shower was definitely on her agenda. A shower and a fruity rum drink.

“Unclear.” he said tersely. She got the feeling that not knowing annoyed him.

“Right. Anything else I should know, Oh Lord and Master?” she asked, her voice practically dripping with artificial sweetness

Her question startled a quiet huff of laughter from the usually reserved agent. “Just that you never call me that where Barton can hear you. I’ll be in touch by Monday.”

“Sir, yes sir.” she sassed.

“I suppose it was too much to hope that you learned protocol at Quantico?” he asked, sounding exasperated.

Darcy chuckled, “Oh, I learned it. And then I learned to ignore it when I wanted to.”

He sighed, “Rules exist for a reason Miss Lewis.” 

“I don’t like to think of them as rules, more like guidelines.” she said brightly.

“We’re a top secret government agency; not a band of pirates.”

“And yet you recruit like pirates. Drink up me 'earties. Yo ho. And on that note, I’m going to get cleaned up and go down to the hotel bar for a large fruity drink with rum in.”

“Eight am in the lobby Miss Lewis.” cautioned Coulson and he hung up.

“Spoilsport.” she muttered and tossed her phone on the bed.


	5. Welcome to the Jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Darcy's first day on the job which means dressing to impress, being sassy, and trying not to piss off anyone who might be deadly. Two out of three ain't bad, right?

At five to eight the next morning Darcy stood in the hotel lobby. She’d decided to dress to maim, rather than kill. Dressing to kill meant wearing uncomfortable shoes and she wasn’t sure how much time she’d have to spend on her feet while she got her clearance qualifications. 

Dressing to maim meant tailored dark grey pinstriped trousers, a matching jacket, a bright blue blouse, and low heeled boots. The neatly tailored suit had been a graduation gift from her grandmother, who’d told her, “A good suit means you never have to worry about what to wear to an interview.” Her concession to the boho chic styles she favored was a large black handbag with turquoise detailing she’d picked up in New Mexico.

She was browsing her Facebook feed on her phone when she heard someone approach, looking up she was shocked to see Agent Coulson. “Where did you come from?” she asked once he was standing in front of her.

He slid his sunglasses off and folded them into the breast pocket of his suit. “Portland.” he answered.

She considered his answer for a moment before shrugging, “So that’s where you were assembled. Good to know. What brings you to sunny Los Angeles?”

“I’m just passing through on my way back to even sunnier New Mexico. Since my layover was here I opted to fly out tomorrow and bring you in myself.” the corner of his mouth quirked, “I thought you might be less of a shock to your new associates if I introduced you.”

Darcy gave him an arch look, “Well since I haven’t been issued any weapons yet and you _still_ haven’t given me back my old taser I’ll have to settle for shocking people the good old fashioned way, by opening my mouth.”

As they made their way out of the lobby Phil muttered, “That’s what I’m afraid of.” and put his sunglasses back on.

“So, boss man, anything you can tell me about this project you want me for?” she queried, following him to the car.

He shook his head, “Not yet, I’m sorry. Though once you’re set up with your clearance level you’ll begin assisting me remotely with operational logistics.”

“Sheesh, that’s vague with a side of vague sauce. Are you ever allowed to be straightforward or is it against your programming?” groused Darcy. “Nice ride.” she commented when they reached a sleek black sedan that cost more than she’d made the previous year.

“It’s from the auto pool.” he said, dismissively. “I travel a lot, but my personal car is garaged in New York.”

“Auto pool huh? Does that mean I get to drive one of these if I have to travel?” she asked with an anticipatory gleam in her eye as she slid into the passenger seat.

Phil slipped the key in the ignition, starting the car, “It’s a privilege of having a level seven security clearance.” He pulled out of the lot and merged into city traffic.

“Level seven huh?” she asked speculatively. “So how many levels are there, and what’s my level?” 

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, “Officially we have six levels of clearance.”

Immediately catching the discrepancy she asked, “And unofficially?”

“I can’t tell you, but I’m reasonably certain you’ll have figured it out by the end of the week.” He paused, “And before you ask again, you are being brought in with level five clearance; which is another reason I felt it would be useful to be here today. It’s unusual to bring a new agent in at such a relatively high level of access. It can be done, but it should go more smoothly if I’m there.”

Darcy looked at him, her expression uncomfortable, “I’ve had bad experiences with the whole teachers pet special treatment thing. Is this going to fubar things with my new coworkers?”

Phil shook his head, “It shouldn’t. The justification for bringing you in at level five is that you’ve already seen the sort of things that would necessitate a higher security clearance anyway. Awareness of interstellar beings is level four. Awareness of _hostile_ interstellar beings is level five.”

Grinning she asked, “What do I have to do to get to level six?”

“Pay attention and learn. I have a bet with an associate you’ll make level six by the end of the year.” he replied, the near corner of his mouth quirking in what Darcy might have charitably called a smile.

She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a mulish look, “Oh? Really? And what’s in it for me?” 

“Level six clearance and unlimited access to the auto pool.” He would have continued, but his phone began to ring. “Excuse me.” and he slipped a earpiece in and tapped it to answer. “Coulson. In California, I was planning to be on the first flight to Albuquerque in the morning. No, I can do that. It’ll be tight on this end, but I should be able to make that work. Understood” he tapped the earpiece again to disconnect the call.

“What’s up boss man?” Darcy asked, brimming with interest.

“I apologize, we’ll have to hurry things along today, I’m being recalled to New Mexico to monitor an emergent situation. Shall I pass your regards to Agent Barton?” 

“Er, sure.” and they lapsed into silence.

They arrived at a small business park with a complex of single story buildings with mirrored glass. Phil drove the the building furthest removed from the others and parked. Cutting the engine he said, “Welcome to SHIELD Los Angeles Miss Lewis.” and got out of the car.

Darcy followed his lead and trailed after him as he entered the building. Phil strode directly to the reception desk and nodded in greeting at the young latina woman behind the desk who Darcy guessed as being close to her age. “Agent Coulson accompanying probationary Agent Lewis for official intake procedures.”

“Good morning Agent Coulson.” she greeted and placed a small flat panel with a shiny black surface on the counter between them.

He placed his hand flat on the surface and it glowed momentarily, the computer terminal at the reception desk pinged politely and he lifted his hand. “Miss Lewis, please place your hand flat on the panel.”

Sensing that this was not the moment for her usual brand of sass Darcy approached the desk with a smile and nod of her own before placing her hand flat on the glass panel. The glass under her hand glowed again and she felt the surface warm slightly before the computer at the desk made a slightly different tone.

The receptionist gave Darcy an insincere smile with too many bright white teeth and held out a small plastic badge, “Welcome Agent Lewis. Here is your temporary badge. While you are on the premise we ask that you display your badge at all times. Failure to do so will result in a warning. Subsequent failure to produce your badge may result in being shot. This is your only warning.”

Darcy felt herself reflexively swallow and plucked the badge from the other woman’s hand and carefully clipped it to the front of her jacket. “Er, thank you.” She turned to go, stopped, and turned back to the scary, shark like, receptionist, “Two questions, do you have a name? And when do I get a permanent badge like his?” she gestured toward Phil with a jerk of her thumb.

The receptionist looked surprised, as though no one ever bothered to ask her name, “Shannon Ramos, Agent Shannon Ramos. Um, and probably at the end of the day when they’re done making you jump through hoops.”

Darcy smiled, “Awesome, nice to meet you Agent Ramos. And for the sake of my feet I hope the hoops are figurative.”

Agent Ramos unbent enough to chuckle, “Around here you never know. Good luck.”

Darcy waved and let Phil lead her down a corridor that she was reasonably certain was booby trapped. “So, why’s an agent playing receptionist?”

Phil hummed in approval that she’d noticed the person staffing the desk was an agent and not just a well trained receptionist, “It’s a rotating position for junior agents at certain facilities.” he answered as he opened a door and ushered her in.

He followed and closed the door behind him before crossing the room and placing his hand against another black panel, this time set in the wall. A moment later the distinctive sound of an elevator could be heard and a section of wall to the left of the panel slid aside revealing elevator doors.

Darcy whistled lowly, “Well that’s very James Bond.”

The corner of his mouth tugged up in a smirk as Phil took off his sunglasses and slipped them in his breast pocket, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

The elevator doors opened and he motioned with his hand for her to proceed him in. In the elevator he punched in a complex series of numbers on a keypad and spoke his name, “Philip J. Coulson.” into a hidden microphone. 

The elevator pinged slightly at him and a disembodied electronic voice said, “Accepted.”

Smoothly the doors closed and the elevator began to travel down.

“Underground base?” Darcy queried.

Phil gave her his best ‘Well, what do you think?’ look and replied, “They’re expensive, but secure. This is the West Coast satellite office for SHIELD operations. We have an East Coast base in New York and a mobile base; as well as a stationary research installation in New Mexico.”

She shrugged and rocked back slightly on her heels, resisting the urge to begin fidgeting, “I was more thinking that if someone down here has a hairless cat, I’m cutting and running because either ya’ll are just one shark with a frickin’ laser away from becoming a pack of Bond villains or the zombie apocalypse is about to go down and I don’t want to die by homicidal AI.”

“I assure you this facility is cat, shark, AI, and zombie free. However if you ever meet Tony Stark I can only promise his residences are free of cats, sharks, and zombies; to the best of my knowledge of course.” he said in a way Darcy was sure she was supposed to accept as reassuring, but mostly made her look at Phil as though he’d hit his head.

She was quiet for a moment before asking, incredulously, “Wait, are you saying I might meet Tony Stark? Or that he has a homicidal AI?”

He clasped his hands in front of him and gave her a sidelong look, “In your line of work Agent Lewis, anything is possible. It pays to be prepared.”

“I hate it when I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.” she grumbled.

The remainder of her day was spent trailing after Phil in the labyrinthine corridors of the subterranean base. She was poked, prodded, scanned, and photographed. 

She spent an hour in the indoor firing range proving she knew how to use the gun they were about to issue her. When she was handed a compact sidearm and its holster she had to resist the urge to hold the thing like a dead rat before stripping off her jacket and settling the straps around her shoulders and putting her jacket back on.

She was far more excited about the sleekly designed, matte black taser, that was also issued to her. “I shall call him Sparky, and he will be mine. And he will be my little Sparky. Come here Sparky!” and she made grabby hands at the taser.

The agent issuing the weapons glanced at Phil; as though asking if he was really sure about giving the unhinged girl a gun, much less a taser. Catching the expression on his face she planted her hand on her hips and glared, “What?! Men can name their cocks and their cars, but women can’t name their weapons? What kind of sexist bullshit is that?”

Her comment caused the female agent behind them, waiting to get more ammunition for the range, to howl in laughter.

Phil just lowered his head and covered his eyes with his hand. Darcy rather thought he looked as though he might have swallowed a live frog. Or was trying not to laugh too. She couldn’t quite tell.

Their second to last stop found her trading in the temporary visitor badge for an official version with her photograph, name, title, a series of numbers which she was told was her operational asset number and should be memorized, a barcode at the top, a QR code, and a magnetic stripe on the back. She turned it over in her hands and looked at Phil who was returned her gaze levelly. Grinning a little defiantly she clipped the badge on her jacket. “Now what Secret Agent man?” The lackey behind the desk looked horrified and shot a panicked look at Phil to see what he’d do.

Phil just sighed, “Now I take you to tech and introduce you to the logistics team you’ll be shadowing with.”

They were making their way down another nondescript grey and white corridor when Darcy asked, “So, not to be a pain, but does this place come with a map? Because this place is like one of those really old video games ‘You’re in a maze of twisty corridors all alike...’ which I get from a tactical point, harder to infiltrate, but from the new girl point it’s going to make finding the bathroom a pain.”

Phil didn’t answer until they reached a junction of two hallways. Standing in the intersection he pointed to the corner where she saw there was a small placard indicating areas A through C were ahead and areas D through F were behind them. To their left were sections four through six and to the right were sections one through three. “This installation is essentially set up like city streets.”

“Huh, not very stealthy you know.” she observed.

He shrugged slightly, accepting her statement, “We tried to leave things unmarked, but after the third case of finding agents unfamiliar with the facility walking in circles, lost, administration decided a small concession to directions would be useful.”

Darcy snorted, amused at the mental image of one of the highly trained agents getting lost in the hallways of the underground base.

Tech was area B, section five and as they entered the room she heard a voice call out, “Coulson! You’ve got a call from the director in conference room two on a secure line.”

“I’ll be right there.” he answered. Turning to Darcy he said, “Go see Harrison.” and he indicated a man of middling age with curly dark hair who was typing away with intent focus. “He’ll finish getting you set up.” and he strode away, she assumed to conference room two.

For a moment she was annoyed by Phil’s apparently cavalier abandonment of her, but she quickly realized that if he was going to trust her to take care of business, she was going to have to start taking care of business without having him hold her hand. She squared her shoulders and purposefully approached Harrison.

“Hey, Coulson said I needed to see you.” she said by way of greeting.

“Ngh.” Harrison replied, inarticulately, fingers still flying over his keyboard.

Miffed, she drawled, “Sorry, I don’t speak neanderthal. I need words, preferably in English.”

“Wha?” was the almost understandable response as Harrison jerked his head up, eyes flicking back and forth. Finally his gaze lit on Darcy and he blinked several times, “Um, hi?”

“Hi there, welcome back to the world of the fleshy humans.” She stuck out her hand in greeting, “I’m Darcy Lewis, you’re Harrison, and I don’t know if that’s a first or last name, and Coulson said I needed you to do something for me, but he didn’t say what, so I’m hoping you have a new agent process or something.” 

He blinked a few more times, clearly trying to process the unexpected burble of words. Finally something seemed to click into place and he took her hand, “Welcome to the Wretched Hive Agent Lewis.” he said, a faint smirk playing around the corner of his mouth making his eyes crinkle behind his glasses.

Grinning in response she retorted, “Oooh! Where do I sign up for the villany? And is the scum optional?”

Harrison snorted through his nose, “I didn't peg you for a Star Wars geek.”

Grabbing an empty rolling chair from the workstation beside Harrison she dropped, gracelessly on it, “I fly my geek flag high. So, what’re you so focused on?”

He glanced at his screen and hitched a shoulder dismissively, “Hacking the NSA. This your first day?”

Darcy sputtered in surprised, “Hacking the NSA?! Won’t you get in trouble?”

“Only if they catch me.” he smirked at her wickedly. “So, first day?”

She rolled her eyes, “Ugh, yes. So much paper work. But I think I’m nearly done. Coulson said you were supposed to get me set up, but I don’t know with what.”

Grabbing his keyboard Harrison brought up a fresh desktop on a second monitor, “Can I see your phone?”

“Uh, sure. What for?” she asked, reaching into her purse to retrieve the phone.

“So I can upgrade the security, turn it into a tracking device, add some numbers you’ll need, and give you the best coverage you’ve ever had. Also depending on the model of your phone minimal satellite access.” and he plucked her phone out of her hand. “Hmm... Okay, iPhone 5. I’m going to have to jailbreak your phone. Does that matter?”

She flailed, trying to grab her phone back, “Will you fuck up my playlists? I’ve got like fifty of them. If this fucks up my playlists I’m going to be pissed.”

Harrison shook his head making his curls flop around, “Nah, shouldn’t be a problem. I’m not going to touch the data you have on there. I’m just going to update some background stuff.”

Darcy glared, “If you’re wrong you are so dead mister.” and she sat back to watch as he plugged her phone in and began typing.

Ten minutes later he unplugged her phone and passed it back, “There you go. All done. A few things you should know. Your service contract doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve removed it from your providers database. If your phone is destroyed go out, buy a new phone, and bring it to me or another tech department. They’ll redo what I just did. Your phone now has two numbers that ring to it. One is your old number, one is your SHIELD number. If someone rings the SHIELD number you’ll be able to tell. Trust me. If you need to make a secure call dial six-one-six and then the number you need. It lasts for 90 seconds. The call will automatically disconnect at the minute and a half mark. And lastly if your phone is stolen I am the first call you make. Got it?”

She looked at the phone in her hand and back up, eyes wide, “Yeah, got it. My phone can do everything but the dishes and walk the dog.”

He grinned, “Give me time and I’ll have an app for that too. Anything else?”

“Yeah, Coulson said I’d be working down here for a while. Who do I report to? He said I’d be shadowing with the logistics team.”

Harrison stood up and pointed to the far corner of the room, “Logistics is Nelson and Denover. Denover’s okay, kind of an uptight prick, but mostly okay. Nelson’s a loose cannon, one week she’s rock solid and another week she’s giving all the other female agents the stink eye. I think she and Denover used to have a thing, but I’m not sure.”

Darcy was about to reply when Coulson ghosted up beside her and nodded at Harrison, “She all set?”

Harrison gave him a thumbs up, “Your protege is locked and loaded Agent, she’s got the latest software on her phone and I made sure she got the shovel talk about who to call if her phone goes missing.”

“Thank you. I’ll get her introduced to Nelson and Denover.” and he turned to go.

Darcy scrambled out of her chair and followed Phil across the room. “I like the cut of his jib.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” huffed Phil in a manner that Darcy was starting regard as fond. She stored that thought away for later consideration.

“Nelson, Denover, I’d like you to meet Agent Lewis. She’ll be joining you for the foreseeable future to learn operations logistics. Please bring her up to speed on the assets that I spoke with you about. I’ll begin contacting her with assignments in the next two weeks.”

Darcy held out her hand and smiled, “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

Denover took her hand and smiled back, “Mike Denover, good to have you on board Agent Lewis.”

Agent Nelson raked Darcy up and down with her eyes, clearly passing some sort of judgement, before grudgingly greeting her, “Hi.”

Darcy bit her tongue, she’d encountered enough women like Agent Nelson over the years to not to take it too personally. Some people just saw a pretty face and her proportions and jumped to every kind of unflattering conclusion they could. She tried to not let it piss her off, but it was hard.

Phil glanced back and forth between Darcy and Agent Nelson a moment before evidently deciding to leave well enough alone, “Please put Agent Lewis in the emergency roster, even if she isn’t fully briefed I’d like her to have eyes on experience to see how we get things done when things go to hell.”

Darcy raised her hand, “Mind telling me what that means?”

“It means you’re on call. If your phone rings you have thirty minutes, tops, to get your ass into this room and in a chair to help handle whatever the crisis of the week is.” snapped Nelson.

Phil gave Nelson a stony look, “Essentially yes. You’ll have scheduled duty hours when you’re here. Outside of those duty hours you’re on call because emergencies don’t happen on a schedule, as I’m sure you’re aware.” He glanced at his wristwatch and grimaced, “I’m just about out of time. Lets get you to the auto pool and set up with a car before I leave.” He nodded at the other agents, “Nelson, Denover.” and turned to go.

Darcy gave them a little wave, “Um, be seeing you.” and hurried after Phil.

Denover waved back and Nelson snorted indelicately.

As she caught up to her mentor she murmured, “I don’t think Nelson likes me much.”

“Consider it a lesson in working with disparate personalities.” he advised.

Making their way back to the surface Darcy was surprised to discover they’d spent the better part of five hours in the hidden base, “Wow,” she exclaimed, “I didn’t think we were down there that long.”

They exited the building and Darcy smiled at Agent Ramos who was still staffing the receptionist desk, this time with a sandwich and a cup of coffee nearby. Ramos gave her a subtle thumbs up when she saw the official badge affixed to Darcy’s jacket.

Darcy followed Phil past his car and to the next nearest building which seemed to be more of a warehouse than a suite of offices. They stopped at a door with a card reader and he gave her a meaningful look. Catching on she quickly unclipped her card from her jacket and swiped her card and watched the lights change from red to green, she could hear the door unlock with a click. Pushing the door open she followed Phil into the warehouse. 

Sitting with his feet up on a desk was a older man with mostly grey hair that still had a faint sheen of it’s past copper color, wearing a stained mechanics coverall and a patch over the right pocket that said O’Brien. “You’d better not be back here to tell me that car is squeaking again.” he scolded Phil.

Phil looked at him, sheepishly, “No it’s just fine. But I have a junior agent who isn’t local who needs transportation.”

“Ah! Well then,” and he kicked his feet off the desk and stood up. “Right this way missy.” and he limped across the room to a door opposite from where they’d entered. 

Darcy was still bristling over being called ‘missy’ when Phil gently took her elbow and began guiding her after the mechanic. “He used to be one of the best field agents in SHIELD.” murmured Phil. “But he was shot saving an asset and four other agents. When it was suggested he should retire because his hip would never be the same he refused. Said he wanted a job out of the field doing something he loved. He keeps the motor pool here running by managing the shop and he restores vintage cars in his spare time.”

“ _He’s_ vintage.” she retorted, tartly.

“He can probably also still take down ten junior agents.” chided Phil.

Darcy bit back an exclamation and looked again at the older man in the coveralls with a newfound respect.

On the other side of the door O’Brien asked for her drivers license and newly issued SHIELD ID, peered at them for a moment and then at Coulson. “Are you sure she’s old enough to be an Agent? She’s younger than my youngest niece.”

“Fresh out of Quantico.” Phil assured.

“Feh. You’re hiring children Phil.” he grumbled.

Darcy finally snapped, “Hey! Standing right here old man. I may be young but I will tase your ass if you keep talking about me like I’m not even here!”

O’Brien grinned at her, his pale green eyes glinting with barely suppressed laughter, “Well she’s got a fire in her alright. Let’s get you a car Darcy Lewis and get you the hell out of my garage before we kill each other on general principle.”

Several minutes later through an arcane process she didn’t entirely follow Darcy found herself in possession of a key to a fairly new compact car in a drab black. “Don’t you people believe in anything other than black as a color?”

“If everythings black then everyone can bitch about the color kid.” remarked O’Brien. “Cars are in the lot around back. You pay for the gas and get reimbursed once a month. Now get out of my garage.”

Phil clasped the older man on the shoulder, “Be seeing you Liam.”

“Bah, get out of here before I shoot you and take my car back.” growled O’Brien.

Back in the hot midday sun Phil put his sunglasses back on. “Agent Lewis, report to the logistics team tomorrow morning at eight. I expect weekly progress reports from here on out.”

Darcy tugged on the hem of her jacket, “For how long?”

Phil looked at her over the top of his glasses, “For as long as it takes, which had better not be any longer than it needs to be.”

Sighing she rolled her eyes, “We have got to work on your tendencies to vagueness boss.”

“Noted.” and he strode away toward his waiting car.


	6. Hell in a Handbasket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy gets a rude wake up call.
> 
> New Mexico is under attack and all hands are called in. Even mostly untrained logistics ops agents like Darcy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on when things happen in the Avengers movie I decided that things take place over a roughly 48 hour period starting with the events in New Mexico.

Darcy woke abruptly to the terrifying sound of an alarm klaxon sounding near her head. She flailed for her phone and missed it the first time, before managing to grab it as it tried to vibrate off the nightstand. The display simply read LA HQ. Hands shaking slightly she fumbled with the touch screen to answer the call. “This is Darcy. Er, Agent Lewis.”

An unfamiliar voice snapped at her, “We have a level one emergency, all personnel are to report to their nearest operations base. This is not a drill. Report to your nearest base or operations unit.” Before she could ask what a level one emergency even _was_ (she’d fallen asleep reading a briefing packet) the line went dead.

Heart still pounding from her unpleasant wake up call she scrambled out of bed and dove for her still half unpacked suitcase. Deciding ‘being dressed’ was more important than ‘looking professional’ she yanked out a pair of black jeans, a clean green t-shirt, and a shapeless beige sweater. It might be warm outside at two fifteen in the morning in Los Angeles, but she’d noticed that the lower levels of the base had been just this side of chilly and she didn’t like being cold. She dressed quickly before yanking a brush through her hair and tying the unruly mess back with an elastic band.

She’d jammed her feet in her boots and was halfway out the door, keys in one hand, purse in the other, before she realized that if there was an emergency that she should bring her weapons. She pulled her sweater off and fumbled with the straps of the unfamiliar holster before getting it settled over her shirt. Casting around the room she finally found her new taser on the floor between the nightstand and the bed. She dropped it in her purse and yanked her sweater back over her head, effectively hiding her gun.

Darcy took a deep breath, opened the door, and jogged toward the nearest exit wondering what the hell was going on. In her car she took a moment to pull up the address of the business park where she’d been only twelve hours earlier and uttered a silent word of thanks that she’d had the presence of mind to put the address in her phone.

Twenty three minutes after she’d rolled out of bed Darcy was taking the elevator down from the lobby into the maze of her new office. She stepped off the elevator and was nearly bowled over by a squad of heavily armed men and women in black fatigues carrying rifles who were jogging down the hall. She caught the words “New Mexico” and “explosion” as they went by.

The halls were a swarm of activity as she made her way to the tech hive. None of what she overheard in the conversations she passed made any sense, and a building sense of dread made her stomach knot painfully. Clint and Phil were in New Mexico. Phil who she was building an odd relationship that was somewhere between mentor, boss, and friend, because she had zero boundaries and she got the feeling she was wearing down his stuffy demeanor. Phil who had the driest sense of humor and always had a sly rejoinder for her total lack of verbal filters. And Clint who’d understood her fears about using a gun, and instead of mocking her or taking her down a peg had talked her through it and given her solid advice. Clint who texted her pictures of grilled bugs in foreign places just for her offended replies. Clint who sometimes made her feel more welcome than either of her elder brothers.

She pushed her way into tech and was momentarily dazed by the cacophony of sound. Harrison was standing at his desk shouting at another tech that he needed to know the exact time New Mexico went off line. Denover was at his desk, short dirty blonde hair sticking up in all directions like an electrocuted porcupine, demanding the updated physical asset reports from last weeks audit. Nelson paced in tight circles behind her partner, still wearing sweatpants, muttering “Pick up damn you. Pick up.”

Steeling herself Darcy dove into the fray and made her way to an empty desk beside Denover.

“Fuck!” cursed Nelson. “What part of level one emergency DOESN’T HR understand?” she roared, throwing her headset down on her desk.

“What do you need HR for?” Darcy asked as she shoved her bag in a desk drawer.

“I need them to release the current roster of agents and assets in New Mexico so we can see who’s missing.” growled the other woman.

Before she could ask what happened, Harrison called out from across the room, “Forty eight minutes ago a full evac was called for the New Mexico research site. Thirty seven minutes ago there were reports of a massive explosion which caused a giant sinkhole where the facility _used_ to be. Everything else is a complete cluster fuck.”

She swallowed, hard, shoving the rush of fear down, “What do you need me to do?”

“Right now if you can find us a huge pot of coffee it would be a good start. After that I want you reviewing personnel lists.” He turned to Nelson, “I don’t care what you need to do to get that information from HR but we need it.” directed Harrison.

Darcy got up to go find a source of coffee and asked, “If you can hack the NSA, why can’t you hack our own HR?”

Harrison slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand, “Because I’m a moron. Nelson, you’ll have the data at your terminal in two minutes. Split the list with Lewis.” and he turned back to his terminal and began typing.

Several minutes later Darcy returned with an air pot of coffee, a tray of mugs, and a container of half and half. She set her spoils down and poured herself a mug before returning to her desk to begin reviewing data. Harrison glanced up from his computer long enough to see the coffee and beamed, “Lewis, I could kiss you. Except for the part where you have girl cooties and my husband would slap me.”

“In that case I’ll take it in the spirit it was clearly intended and not as a slight against my excellent assets.” Darcy called back.

Denover chuckled and Nelson glared.

Darcy rolled her eyes and began pouring over her lists. The first was the report of who was officially stationed at the New Mexico facility including agents, administrative support, researchers, even the people who worked in the cafeteria. The second was the list of people who had by one means or another been accounted for. Nelson had taken A through M and given Darcy N through Z. She was starting on S when a familiar name appeared, Erik Selvig, who was among the apparently missing.

“I... I need to make a call. How do I make a call?” she asked her voice high and tight with rising panic.

Nelson whipped around and snapped, “Now is not the time.”

“Look bitch I need to make a call.” she snarled, jabbing a finger at Erik’s name on the screen, “That’s my friend. And his name is on a list that means he’s missing. He. Is. My. Friend. So stop with whatever horrible powertrip you’re on and tell me how to get a line out.”

Before things could get out of hand Denover interjected, “We have repeaters down here and Harrison boosted your phone, you should be able to get a call out on your cell.”

Darcy breathed a sigh, “Thank you Mike.”

She dialed Erik’s number and tried to control the prick of tears behind her eyelids when her call went to voicemail, “Erik’s it’s Darcy. Look don’t ask how I know, but I know something bad’s just happened where you are. Please call me.”

Her hands shaking she put her phone down on her desk, within easy reach, and returned to cross checking her list. She finished her first pass and did a second, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anyone. “Who do I send this to?” she asked finally.

“Send it to me.” replied Nelson, flatly. “Do you really know someone in New Mexico?”

Darcy bit her tongue for a moment, suppressing the desire to ask the other woman ‘What do you think?’, before answering, “Three someone’s. I used to work for Erik. Well for Jane really, but it became Erik and Jane when he came out to help her with her research. I was their intern and gopher. Something crazy weird happened while we were there. Which is how I met Agent Coulson.” She turned around quickly in her chair, her expression anxious as she asked Nelson, “Are Coulson and Barton okay?”

There was a long pause, “Agent Coulson evacuated the facility and has reported in. Agent Barton is still unaccounted for.”

Harrison came over from his terminal and laid a gentle hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “We all know someone in New Mexico. But right now we need you to focus.”

She took a steadying breath and asked, “What can I do now?”

Denover spoke up, “You’ve helped Liz sort the list. Now she needs to upload the report. Why don’t you work on reading up on the asset reports you were supposed to be familiarizing yourself with? There’s not going to be a lot you can do if you don’t know what you have to work with.”

Darcy chewed on her lower lip for a moment, torn between demanding actual work, and the knowledge that she didn’t actually know enough to be able to work effectively. She settled for texting Phil, **Freaking out here, our reports say Clint and Erik are missing. Please tell me if you know anything.** She turned her phone over in her hands a moment before deciding to text Clint too, **Dear Bird Brain, don’t be dead. kay? thx bye.** She set her phone back down and settled into her reading.

Over the next several hours conflicting reports came pouring in. It didn’t take long for the rumor mill to get started. Hundreds were missing from New Mexico. Dozens were missing from New Mexico. There had been a mole at the research facility. There had been mole men. There had been an incursion by Hydra. One of the scientists had sabotaged a nuclear reactor in the base. It was espionage. It was aliens. It was espionage BY aliens; that last one made Darcy snigger quietly into her coffee. When that rumor came through it was nine in the morning, she’d gotten roughly four hours of sleep before she’d been woken up, and the only alien her brain could provide her with was that fuzzy long nosed one from the old 80’s TV show that was in reruns when she was little. Logically she _knew_ Thor was an alien, but his human appearance and habit of speaking like a ren faire refugee made him odd to her, not alien.

Shortly after ten her phone chimed and she desperately scrambled to find it under the pile of papers on her desk. Holding her breath she checked the message, it was from Phil, **Officially information is limited to highest clearance levels. Unofficially Barton and Selvig were captured and seen alive after the collapse of the base. Foster is being sent to safety. More information as I am able.** She dropped her phone to the desk and cradled her head in her hands. Erik and Clint captured?! What the hell was happening?

She heard rustling behind her and the sound of someone setting a plate down on her desk, she looked up to see an unexpected expression of sympathy on Nelson’s face. Numbly Darcy picked up her phone and handed it to the other woman, who began to quietly curse, “They captured Hawkeye? Shit on a stick. Something is not right.”

“Hawkeye?” Darcy asked. 

“Barton’s call sign. His partner goes by Black Widow. Scary ass woman. And that’s saying something around here.” answered Nelson.

Darcy began to laugh a little hysterically, “Oh god I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?” Harrison asked, scooping up a sandwich from the laden plate Nelson had set down.

Still giggling she replied, “That Clint’s call sign is Hawkeye. I’ve been calling him bird brain for months.”

Nelson’s jaw dropped slightly, “Just how long have you known Coulson and Barton?”

“Since last year. After I graduated Phil offered me the job. He said he wanted an understudy for something.” she answered reaching for a sandwich of her own.

Nelson gave her a skeptical look, “He had his pick of highly trained operatives and he wanted some kid fresh out of college?”

With a wry look Darcy threw her hands up, “I never did get a straight answer out of him about why. I think he was impressed because I didn’t run away like a little bitch when the giant metal thing started blowing up Puente Antiguo.” Realizing what she’d just said she slapped a hand over her mouth.

Denover turned from his workstation, “Giant metal thing? You were there for what went down there?” his expression was impressed.

Hand still over her mouth and her eyes wide behind her glasses she nodded. She dropped her hand and whispered, “I am so dead. Phil is going to make me disappear into some filing annex and I’ll never see the sun again. Not that I really like the sun, I burn too easy, but it’s nice to see and please don’t kill me.”

Harrison laughed at her stricken expression, “It’s alright kid, we’re all at least level five here. We might not have the whole story, but we know enough.” He turned his attention to Nelson, “Have we set up a sleep rotation yet? There’s no word on when we’re going to get the okay to stand down from the director and if this is as big as it’s starting to look like we may be at this a few days.”

The next two days were a blur. At some point midway through the first day an official report from Director Fury was released detailing an as of yet unknown energy weapon that had been discharged in the underground New Mexico research facility. The report stated there had been massive property damage and minimal loss of life, but there were still agents and other personnel missing. There was an advisory that if any of the missing staff were seen to approach with extreme caution. Darcy had no further word from Phil that day.

There was another flurry of gossip early that evening. Something had happened in Germany at a fancy art exhibition. There had been a murder and a theft. Iron Man had been spotted and, more unbelievably, so had a man dressed as Captain America. They’d been seen attacking a man in green who was presumed to have some part in the murder. 

Darcy could believe Iron Man had been there, after all Tony Stark was renown for his “I am Iron Man.” proclamation a few years prior and his one man war on terrorism. But Captain America was a World War II relic who, by all history texts, had died in action over the Atlantic Ocean when he crashed a plane bearing a high yield explosive to save the eastern seaboard. It just stretched the imagination. 

The agreed on explanation within the tech cluster was that it was clearly some new SHIELD operative who had been given the mantle of Captain America. Darcy wondered how Phil would feel about that, she’d learned a few months earlier that he was a huge Captain America fanboy and even collected vintage trading cards and comics. She decided Phil would either love the guy or hate him on principle.

She was sent to grab a few hours of sleep even though she claimed not to need it, “This isn’t any worse that finals week sleep dep.” she claimed.

Nelson gave her a half hearted glare, “Except for the part where if you fuck up you could cost someone their life. In this job when someone tells you to get some rack time it’s much better not to argue.”

She swallowed her pride and stalked off with as much dignity as possible to barracks like room filled with cots a few corridors over for her allotted break. Several hours later she blinked open tired, dry eyes, and stumbled back down the hall to tech.

Harrison, Denover, and Nelson were nowhere to be seen. Harrison’s second, Grace Mason, a woman with ash blonde hair and thick glasses, was sitting at his desk and scowling fiercely at a screen. Several other desks were staffed with people Darcy didn’t recognize or couldn’t recall their names.

She poured herself the dregs of cold coffee and went to her desk, pulling another stack of briefing papers toward her as she sat. In her piles of briefings were several detailed write ups from Phil about past ops, some more heavily redacted than others, but one pattern she’d noticed almost immediately was they were ops primarily composed of a two person team; Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye and his partner Natasha Romanoff , codename Black Widow. 

She’d just finished reviewing an extremely redacted ops report from a nearly failed extraction operation in Budapest and was trying to reconcile the Clint who complained about mayonnaise on his burger with a highly trained sniper operative, when an alarm began sounding and Mason began cursing in what sounded like fluent German.

“Cut that noise!” Mason yelled to no one in particular. The wailing alarm warbled off as Harrison, with Nelson and Denover hot on his heels, barreled through the door.

“Report!” called Harrison as he shooed Mason out of his chair.

“The carrier just sent a distress call, they’re under attack and losing altitude sir!” answered one of the coms techs that Darcy didn’t know.

The room practically exploded into action while Darcy sat at her desk, eyes wide. As Denover threw himself into his chair she asked, “What’s the carrier?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” he said brusquely.

She snorted, “Try me.”

“Highly classified flying battle platform that can double as a sea based aircraft carrier.” was his answer.

Darcy turned in her seat and looked at him over the top of her glasses, “If I wasn’t in a secret underground government base I would probably tell you you’re full of shit.”

Nelson scoffed at them from her station, “You know Lewis I thought you were going to be a complete pain in my ass.”

“I was totally willing to be if you didn’t stop looking at me like I was a bug you found in your boot Nelson.” she replied, fingers flying over her keys trying to gain access to files on the carrier, now that she knew it existed.

There was an excited whoop from across the room, “Engines stabilized and the carrier is holding steady.” A resounding cheer was the response from the rest of the room.

Things were relatively quiet in the tech center for about thirty minutes and then all hell broke loose when one of the agents on coms started yelling about the sky opening up in New York and aliens on the news.

The entire room could only watch in horror and awe from their stations as chaotic news feeds from New York broadcast wide spread disaster and devastation. A flash of flying red and gold as Iron Man banked hard around a corner with flying sleds of aliens hot on his heels. 

Running through the fray on ground level she saw a man in blue and white carrying a shield accompanied by a woman in a black catsuit with blazing red hair.

Harrison was hacking all the CCTV feeds he could and Darcy stifled a shout when she saw a familiar red cloak covering scaled armor. “Holy shit! Thor!” and she pointed at a monitor which clearly showed Thor clinging to the side of a building, summoning lightning from the sky. “Oh crapcakes Jane is going to be so fucking angry when she sees that.”

“Who’s that?” demanded Nelson.

Darcy answered, almost absently, completely transfixed by the monitor, “I tazed him in New Mexico.” 

Her answer received a flatly unbelieving look from the other woman who asked, “You tazed a man who’s summoning lightning?” 

“He was freaking me out. It was totally justified.” she defended.

A giant green _thing_ launched itself across one of the other screens, pounding an alien flat with enormous fists.

Darcy balled her hands up in the sleeves of her sweater and watched, eyes flicking quickly from one monitor to another as she tried to make sense of the images. From her left Harrison shouted, “I’ve got eyes on Hawkeye!” and brought the image up on one of the larger monitors.  
Clint stood braced on the edge of a building firing arrow after arrow at enemies. Darcy boggled at the utter mind bending strangeness of someone using a stone age weapon to fight aliens.

“Where’s the feed?” questioned Denover.

Harrison laughed, sounding a little hysterical, “I’ve got him on a peregrine nesting cam from a nest that fledged last week.”

“Hah!” was the response from Nelson, “Figures!”

Darcy stared fixedly at the image of her friend and choked off a scream when he took a running _leap_ off the building, twisted like a cat in the air, and fired an arrow UP. He abruptly disappeared out of the range of the camera and Harrison cursed as he worked to find other cameras in the city covering that area.

Mason yelled from her station, “He went through a window and we lost visual.”

Slowly Darcy released a shaky breath and tried to calm her frantically beating heart. She spared a thought for Phil and hoped he was somewhere safe from the aliens.

There was another commotion and confused shouting, Iron Man seemed to be guiding a missile (and where had THAT come from?!) into the fissure in the sky the aliens had been spewing forth from. It felt as though everyone in the room was holding a collective breath, waiting to see what would happen next. Iron Man vanished into the hole in the sky and moments later the hole began to rapidly shrink.

Something red and gold fell out of the collapsing tear at the last possible moment and plummeted toward the earth. Just when Darcy was certain they were about to see the last moments of Iron Man, aka Tony Stark, eccentric billionaire inventor the giant green _thing_ lept impossibly high and snatched him from the air. The room erupted into wild cheering.

Hands shaking Darcy texted Clint, **Please tell me you’re okay.** and then Phil **Aliens, what the fuck is with the aliens? Also Thor?!? I hope you know you are going to have one super pissed off tiny scientist after your ass when she sees the news. You might want to think about witness protection.**

Within the hour they’d received orders to stand down. Nelson turned to Darcy and clapped her on the shoulder, “Go back to your hotel and sleep. No one will expect to see you before nine tomorrow.”

Reluctantly Darcy gathered her things and slowly began the trek back to the surface. She’d slept maybe six hours in the past fifty and was so tired her entire body ached with it. She wasn’t sure if it was from the constant state of anxiety or just from being tired, but was pathetically thankful for being sent ‘home’. If for no other reason than she could take a shower and put on a clean shirt. Two days in the same clothes and she felt pretty ripe. As she got in her car she made a mental note to always keep a small ‘go’ bag packed with clean shirts, underwear, and toiletries that she could grab if (when) there was another emergency. Even if she couldn’t take a shower a clean shirt went a long way.

Back at her hotel she stumbled into her room, shedding her holster in a chair and leaving a trail of clothes on her way to the bathroom. She took the hottest shower she could stand, washing her hair twice, before wrapping herself up in towels and collapsing on the bed. She lay there on the verge of sleep before groggily getting back up and hanging the ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the outer door knob. On her way back to bed she grabbed her phone and left it charging on the night stand. 

She burrowed under the covers without bothering to put on pyjamas and was asleep within minutes.

Darcy slept, dreamlessly, for ten hours and was woken in the breaking hours of dawn by her phone ringing. “Ngh.” she answered blearily.

“Um, Miss Lewis?” asked an unfamiliar male voice.

“Gah, if you’re selling something I will find and tase you. Or shank you. I will shank you in the shanking place.” she said trying to get her eyes to focus. There was the sound of shuffling, but the other end was otherwise silent until she finally ground out, “Who is this?”

“Oh, um. This is Brian. Doctor Fosters assistant.” 

Darcy gave up trying to get her eyes to focus and lay back down. “What’s up? Is Jane completely losing her shit at the TV?”

“How did you know?” Brian sounded faintly awed.

“Just a hunch. Where are you guys?”

“Tromso. Norway.” he answered immediately.

“Norway?! Holy shit. Phil wasn’t joking.” She finally sat up, blinked a few times to clear her eyes and put on her glasses. “So why the international call Bry?”

“She hasn’t stopped yelling at the TV for the past six hours. And I really don’t know what to do.” he sounded plaintive.

Darcy sighed, “Okay kid, put Jane on for me and go pack your things and hers.”

“... Can’t he call?! I know he’s not from around here, but christ on a cracker! You’d think someone would bother teaching him how to use the goddamn cock sucking mother fucking PHONE!” raged Jane.

Darcy took a deep breath and whistled as loudly as possible into the phone, effectively interrupting Jane’s increasingly profane rant.

There other end of the line was quiet for a moment before Jane shouted, “Darcy! Did you see? Did you see Thor? In New York! With aliens! Fighting! And there was a wormhole in the sky! How is that possible? It should have destabilized a huge chunk of the atmosphere! I’m in Norway Darcy! NORWAY! And Thor is in New York and the jack booted thug who stole your iPod isn’t returning any of my calls! I swear he’s behind this!”

“Jane honey, if you don’t shut up and calm down I’m going to tell Brian to switch all your coffee to decaf and hide all the pop tarts.” She wondered a moment at what kind of crazy bizarro world she was in, when she, Darcy Lewis was the calm, rational one, and Jane Foster, respected scientist, was the one completely losing her shit.

“Thor’s _here_ Darcy. He’s here and I haven’t heard from him.”

Darcy put on her very best big sister ‘I am reasonable and you should listen to me’ voice and said, “I think he might be a little wrapped with the ‘helping save the world’ thing that happened yesterday. BUT this is what I need you to do. You need to get Brian and go to the airport. Do whatever you have to to book a flight back home. You might have to go all the way to Chicago and rent a car to get back to Culver. Oh and leave a message for Phil so he knows where you’ve gone, that way he can help Thor find you.”

There was a pause, “That’s it? Just go home to Virginia?” asked Jane tersely.

“No, go home to Virginia, take a nap, and then drive your happy ass to New York and find mister doesn’t know how to use a phone and bean him over the head with his own fucking hammer. You aren’t going to be able to get a flight into New York, things are going to be too screwed up from aliens wrecking everything.” replied Darcy, trying not to sound too exasperated at her old boss. Sometimes it seemed like the trade off for Jane being scary smart was that she had trouble grasping real world application of knowledge.

“That’s perfect! Thank you!” and Jane abruptly hung up on her.

Darcy huffed with amusement and swung her legs over the edge of the bed to get up when her phone rang again. She answered without looking at the screen, “Jane, look under your bed. Your boots are there.”

“Hey Darce, it’s Clint.” came a familiar voice.

“Oh holy shit. You’re _alive_.” and she tried to tell herself she was absolutely not going to cry over the phone because Clint was alive.

There was a long pause, “Against all odds.”

“I saw you _jump_ off a freaking building. A building Clint. How are you not a pancake?” she asked, trying to control the tone of her voice.

She heard a rustling that sounded like him tucking the phone between his shoulder and chin, “How did you see that?”

“Peregrine cam. I was in tech ops, Harrison was hacking all the CCTV feeds he could.”

Clint made a strange choking sound that Darcy interpreted as laughter, “Oh jesus, I’m going to have to tell ‘Tash about that.”

“Are you okay?”

There was an even longer pause, “No, not really kid. But I’ll get there. Eventually. I wanted to tell you something though, before you go back in.” she heard him heave a sigh, “Fuck there is no good way to tell you this.”

She tried to suppress a shiver that ran down her spine, “Tell me what?”

“Coulson didn’t make it. He...” there was another long, painful sounding pause, “Thor’s brother caused the whole mess in New York. He was in containment but got out. Coulson tried to stop him but Loki was too strong and he had some crazy ass powers. Thor’s saying Loki was always a powerful sorcerer.”

Quietly she asked, “Phil’s dead?”

“Yeah, kiddo. I know he was looking forward to bringing you back to New York so he could personally teach you how to be a badass in a suit.” Clint confirmed.

Darcy swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. “I’m still going to be a badass in a suit. I’ll just have to teach myself.”

Forlornly Clint said, “I... Yeah, you do that. I think he’d like that.” 

She pressed the heel of her hand against one of her eyes, trying to hold back her tears, “Is there going to be a funeral?”

“Yeah, we’ll be doing something. Probably in a week or two. Things are totally fucked here.” confirmed Clint.

“Let me know when, I want to be there. I liked him.”

“He liked you too, Darce. I’ll let you know as soon as I do. Listen, I’ve got to go. We’re sending Thor back home with his fuck up brother in a hour.”

“Wait! Jane! Jane’s coming back from Norway. She’s trying to get to New York to see Thor. Can you tell him that she still misses him? And when she gets there can you tell her not to hate him? Please?” she was too proud to cry on the phone but she wasn’t too proud to beg for Jane.

“I’ll try, okay?” Clint said, trying reassure her.

“Thanks bird brain.”

“Be good kid.” and the call ended.

Darcy dropped her phone on the bed, lay down, curled into a tight ball, and began sobbing. Phil dead, murdered by Thor’s brother. It seemed unreal. She cried herself back to sleep and didn’t wake again until her phone rang at nine when Nelson called her to break the news, again, that Special Agent Philip J. Coulson had fallen in action.


	7. Unexpected Developments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Battle of New York Darcy continues to work in Los Angeles. While she waits for news about Phil's funeral she has an unexpected visitor who has some equally unexpected news.
> 
> Traveling back to New York she finds herself the unsuspecting guest of Tony Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -  
> Real life bit me in the ass something fierce between last chapter and this. I'd hoped to have this published last week but work, social engagements, and my mom landing in the hospital (she's fine, but it was scary) for two days caused a lot of interruptions.
> 
> Hopefully things will be settling down and I can get back to posting more frequently.  
> -

Several days after the Battle of New York she had lunch with her brothers before Jake went back to Ohio. She had to give them credit, her older brothers weren’t often that observant when it came to her moods, but Nate zeroed in on her unsettled emotions almost immediately.

“You look like hell Darce.” he drawled as he stole fries off his twins plate.

She rolled her eyes and gave him a half hearted glare, “Gee, thanks. I’ve had a rough week.”

“S’up?” asked Jake while he pantomimed stabbing his brother in the hand with a fork.

Darcy took a bite of her burger and used the time chewing to consider briefly what she could tell her brothers. She swallowed, took a sip of soda, and answered, “My boss was in New York when things got really freaky and he got killed.” she hunched her shoulders a bit, “He was my boss, but, I liked him. He was a good guy. It just freaks me out that someone I talked to on the phone last week is _dead_. I’ve never really known someone who died before.”

“Shit Darce, that sucks.” said Jake, sympathetically. “You going to be alright?”

She smiled at the rare show of brotherly support, “I’ll be okay.”

Thankfully they changed topics and she didn’t have to dwell on Phil’s death. Before she went back to work her brothers pulled her into a three way hug. Nate kissed her on the top of the head and said, “I’m sorry about your friend.” Darcy adamantly refused to tear up.

Darcy spent the next week reviewing situation reports from the New York incident. Apparently whatever protocol Coulson had initiated for her to receive copies of reports routed to him was still in effect, and for some odd reason the more distant field agents were still submitting action reports to his inbox. Darcy decided that news must travel very slowly, either that or no one had remembered to reroute Phil’s case load.

Between mind numbing reading and periodic breaks to ask Liz (after she’d called to tell Darcy about Phil’s death it seemed rude to go back to calling her Nelson) what certain things meant or why SHIELD did things certain ways, Darcy spent time with Harrison, whose first name turned out to be Levi, as he taught her some of the more advanced ins and outs of hacking foreign security consulates, and how to tap into different communications networks.

She received several messages from Clint, mostly ‘How’re you today?’ or ‘Tony Stark has good toys, but he’s a whiny bitch if you drink the last of the coffee.’ She sensed there was something going on that he didn’t want to talk about so she just nattered to him about her day and how weird it was to work underground. She also told him that drinking the last of the coffee without making more was a dick move and he should cut that shit out before he got kicked in the balls.

Ten days after the battle she got a message from Clint, **Memorial for Phil in four days. Sorry for the short notice.** She pursed her mouth in an unhappy frown and sent Liz a message asking how she went about requesting leave. She was still a little unsure about the command structure, especially since she didn’t seem to have a set assignment beyond ‘learn how to hack the planet’, ‘bring coffee’, and ‘go to combat training to get your ass kicked’.

She was deep in data analysis mode that afternoon when she registered someone standing beside her desk. Glancing up she saw an unfamiliar latino man who wore glasses and a dark tan suit. “S’up?” she said in greeting. “If you’re looking for Harrison he’s out today, but Mason should be back in about ten.”

He stood at the parade rest stance that Darcy had come to associate with agents who had been military or law enforcement before becoming SHIELD. “Actually I was looking for you Agent Lewis.”

She straightened up and arched an eyebrow at him in query, “Can I help you?”

He smiled, which transformed his face from remarkably average to remarkably friendly, “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself; I’m Agent Sitwell. I worked closely with Agent Coulson. He mentioned you a few times. Agent Barton said that you were planning to travel to New York for Phil’s memorial.”

She smiled, tentatively, in return, “Phil talked about you sometimes. He said your habit of putting hot sauce on everything was an abomination against god and man.”

Sitwell scoffed, “I don’t put it on everything.”

“He said you eat chocolate with chilis in.” retorted Darcy, her expression clearly showing her suspicion of chocolate with chilis in.

“It’s _good!_ You should try it before you knock it.” he chided, in defense of his favorite chocolate. “Anyway, Barton said you wanted to be there for Phil’s memorial which conveniently coincides with your reassignment to New York headquarters.” he produced a packet of papers from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed them to her.

Darcy took the papers and opened the envelope, quickly skimming the contents. “What gives?” she asked after reading the cover page. “I thought I’d be stationed here now that Phil’s gone. I mean, I know he had some plan for me, but I figured no Phil, no plan.”

Sitwell grabbed a chair and sat, “I’ve been assigned Phil’s projects, ops, and operatives. I know, roughly, what he had in mind for you and based on your file I think he was right on the money. I swear if he had a superpower it was being right ninety-nine percent of the time and able to dazzle you with bullshit the other one percent and convince you he was right anyway.”

Darcy gave Sitwell a lopsided smile, “I think that’s how he talked me into taking this job. I sort of thought I was going to end up a data monkey down here for good.”

With an apologetic smile he shook his head, “No such luck Lewis. In a few years time I expect you’ll be a first rate handler.”

“Handler?” she asked, suspiciously. “Handler of _what_ exactly? Snakes?”

Smirking slightly Sitwell chuckled, “Not exactly. We have squads of highly trained men and women who are deployed as larger teams. Those teams tend to fall in well established command structures, they’re usually ex-military special forces.” He leaned forward, looking at her intently as he continued, “We also have Specialists. As the name implies, they are men and women with very specific skill sets. Either in infiltration, espionage, marksmanship, explosives, or some other field that earns them the title of ‘Specialist’. Your friend Barton is one. His partner Romanoff is another. Specialists usually work solo or as part of a two or three person team. Specialists have handlers; someone who is exceptional at logistics, analysis, making snap decisions, and, on occassion, field work. Handlers usually work remotely from where the action is taking place and provide intel, relay orders from command, and lay down covering fire when things go to hell. And trust me, they will go to hell when you least expect it.”

Darcy twisted a lock of hair around her fingers, her expression thoughtful, “So, how am I supposed to learn all this?”

Sitwell stood and extended his hand, “By coming to New York and learning how to run ops from me. Phil wanted you to have a good grounding in how information moves around here and introduce you to some people who would be valuable to know. He’d always planned to bring you back to New York HQ within a couple of months, tops, and have you begin helping him.”

She shook his hand, “I should let Liz and Mike know I’m leaving. It’d be a bitch move to just disappear while they’re at lunch.”

He nodded, “Of course. I wanted to come and introduce myself personally. You’ll be leaving on an early flight day after tomorrow, so you should have plenty of time to wrap things up and pack.” He smiled at her again as he turned to go, “It was a pleasure to finally meet you Agent. We’ll be getting started next week.”

Darcy watched Sitwell leave the tech hive and pursed her lips in thought. She’d known that Phil had some master plan for her, but he’d never given her the vaguest idea of what that plan was. Hearing Sitwell give a shape to her proposed career path was exciting; and frightening.

She waited for Liz and Mike to return from their lunch and told them about her reassignment to New York to work with Agent Sitwell.

Mike was sanguine about the news, “I’d have been more surprised if they left you here. You’ve got skills kid, and you need some field experience. Jasper’s a good sort, he’s not Phil, but he’ll keep you in one piece.”

Scoffing Liz had rolled her eyes, “No one is Phil. He stopped a gas station robbery with a bag of flour and no fatalities. I don’t even know if Fury could have done that.”

“Wait, what?” asked Darcy, astonished.

Liz chortled as she pulled a keyboard forward and began accessing a video file, “Oh my god, you haven’t seen the footage? I thought they made every new recruit watch that as part of weapons awareness training; you know the ‘Everything can be a weapon’ lecture?” Grinning she hit play and scooted back so Darcy could watch.

A few minutes later Darcy was shaking her head ruefully, “Holy shit. I knew Phil had to be pretty badass, but that’s some next level shit. I hope no one expects me to pull that off.”

Mike smirked and patted her shoulder, “Not yet kid, give it a few years.”

Darcy looked at him, dubiously, over the top of her glasses. “You know you’re crazy right?”

“You have to be to work here.” was his retort.

The following afternoon she finished her last day at the Los Angeles installation and left with hand shakes, promises to stay in touch, and a newly upgraded laptop from Harrison, “Just remember, if you hack the NSA don’t get caught.” he drolly reminded her.

She smirked, “Yes sensei.”

At the garage she turned the key for her car back over to Liam and asked him to call her a cab to the hotel. Gruffly the older man said, “I thought for sure you’d go back to wherever you came from after Phil died.”

She squared her shoulders and glared, “Why?”

“Because you’re young. At the risk of sounding like I’m about to tell you to get the fuck off my lawn I don’t see a lot of young people with a real strong sense of stick to it. So, why are you staying?” he asked.

Darcy took a deep breath and slowly exhaled as she leaned against one of the filing cabinets in his office, “Because Phil thought I’d be good at this. I’m a pop culture geek and a music nerd. There are days when I watch cartoons all day, eat kids cereal, and can’t be bothered to get out of my pajamas. But for whatever reasons he had, Phil thought I’d be good at doing what he does.” She paused and amended, “What he did. He’s one of the few people I’ve ever known, aside from my parents, and a high school history teacher, who had that kind of faith in me. So I want to keep trying. If I can, I’d like to think he’d be proud. And if I can’t I want it to be because this wasn’t for me, not because I didn’t bother trying.”

Liam rolled his eyes, “God save me from the optimism of youth.”

“Given your age, I think he already has.” quipped Darcy with a grin.

“Feh. Get out of my garage. And when you see Barton ask him what’s being done with Phil’s car. He’ll know what you’re talking about.” said Liam with a wry twist of his mouth.

Darcy waved as she left.

The following morning she was on the six fifteen flight out of Los Angeles International, non-stop, to La Guardia. Shortly after boarding she made the executive decision that early morning flights were the work of the devil, took a Benadryl, put in her ear plugs, and put her seat back to sleep once the announcement was made that they’d reached cruising altitude. She slept until an attendant shook her awake shortly before landing.

At baggage claim she checked her phone for messages she had a single, cryptic text from Clint, **Look for Happy**. She was about to ask who, or what, the hell ‘Happy’ was when she saw a square, heavy set man near the carousel holding a sign that simply read ‘D. Lewis’. Realizing her bags might be a few minutes she sauntered over and smiled, “Are you Happy?  
I think you’re waiting for me.”

He looked at her suspiciously, “Can I see some identification?”

“You don’t need to see my identification.” and she waved her hand in front of his face.

“No, I’m pretty sure I do.” he replied sourly.

Darcy rolled her eyes, “Geeze, tough crowd.” She griped as she pulled her SHIELD issued ID badge out of her purse and handed it to him.

He scrutinized the badge, looked up at her, and then back at the badge. “You’re not wearing glasses in the picture.”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes again she replied, “I wear contacts sometimes.” She thought he was a short step from demanding she take off her glasses, just so he could be sure, when he nodded and passed her ID back.

“Which ones are your bags?” he asked.

“There’s one huge purple one, a small black one with a purple ribbon, and a small hard side case. I’ll need to get that one.” she added.

He looked at her askance, “What’s in the case?”

“My glock and my taser.” Was her matter of fact answer.

“Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” he commented blandly, with a smile playing around the corner of his mouth.

Darcy grinned and bumped her shoulder into his arm, “Hey! You do have a sense of humor.”

“I have to in my line of work. It’s that or go crazy.”

They gathered her bags and made their way to a town car. He stowed her bags in the trunk before opening one of the rear doors to the sedan. She waited until he’d slid into the drivers seat before asking, “So, where are we going?”

“Agent Barton has been staying at the Stark residence with Agent Romanoff and Doctor Banner. We expect Captain Rogers to return later today.”

Darcy nodded, as though the names ‘Banner’ and ‘Rogers’ meant anything to her, filed away the information, and settled back in the seat. Trying to ignore the gnawing sensation of hunger Darcy texted Clint, **Well either I’ve found Happy or I’ve just been kidnapped by the worlds most suspicious chauffeur. You will have my eternal affection if you can feed me when I get there. Sitwell’s a sadist and had me booked on a 6am flight.**

She slumped in her seat and watched the city go by. By the time they got to Manhattan she could see the damage done by the Chitauri. Buildings with their sides smashed in and glass still littering some of the streets. At least they seemed to have gotten all the space whale carcasses removed.

They stopped at a building that Darcy would have pegged as being a museum, not a residence. As she got out of the car Happy explained, “The structural damage to Stark Tower is still being assessed so Mister Stark decided to open the old residence until it’s safe to go back and enough of the repairs have been done people can live there. Though his main house is still in Malibu.”

Darcy slid from the back seat, computer bag and purse over her shoulder, and her gun case in hand and looked at the imposing building. “This isn’t a house, it’s a freaking mansion.” she declared and followed Happy up the front steps. In the foyer she stopped dead in her tracks, taking in the opulent decor. “Holy shit. I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.”

A familiar voice called from another room, “Funny, I thought you were from Ohio.”

She turned toward the voice and put her bags down, “Haha, funny Barton. You’re a real smart ass.”

He ambled across the room, a plate in his hand, and slung his free arm around her shoulder, “For that you won’t get this sandwich.”

She smiled sweetly before elbowing him, hard, in the ribs and snatched the plate out of his hands. Triumphantly she brandished the sandwich at him before taking a bite. Darcy grinned at him, unrepentant, as he rubbed his ribs and glared at her.

A woman with gorgeous chin length wavy red hair sauntered in, rolled her eyes, and said derisively, “Don’t be a dick Clint.” The redhead made her way across the room and introduced herself, “Natasha Romanoff. You must be Darcy Lewis.”

Darcy tried to swallow her mouthful of sandwich; if she’d had her way she would not have chosen to meet one of the most deadly and notorious women of SHIELD after a seven hour cross country flight with her mouth full of roast beef sandwich. 

“Erm, its good to meet you.” Darcy finally replied awkwardly.

The other woman gave a low chuckle, “Let’s see if you’re still saying that after I’ve had a go at you for sparring practice.”

“Oh, fuck nuts. You’re going to kill me and my parents will never know why I died.” squeaked Darcy.

For some reason Happy laughed as he hefted her bags and told Darcy, “Your room is upstairs, third one on the left, I’ll put your suitcases there.”

Darcy took another bite of her sandwich to cover her confusion. Apparently she was now a guest of Tony Stark. She’d honestly expected to just meet up with Clint before needing to get a taxi to a hotel where she’d have to stay until she sorted out more permanent living arrangements. Now she was in a mansion owned by Tony Stark and her things were being carried to a guest room. 

“Don’t worry about it Darce.” Clint said, “I took care of everything.” He took her by the elbow and tugged her along with him through the house to a kitchen that was larger than her studio apartment in Quantico. 

Natasha chimed in as she followed in their wake, “And by ‘everything’ he means he told Stark Coulson’s understudy needed a place to stay for the memorial.” 

Darcy twisted around to look at the other woman, “Understudy? Is _that_ what I’m supposed to be? I guess it beats minion or lackey.”

In the kitchen she perched on a stool and methodically made her way through her lunch. She’d just finished eating when genius inventor, billionaire, philanthropist, (former) playboy Tony Stark came breezing into the room. He stopped and stared at her in confusion before he declared, “I don’t know you. Why are you in my kitchen?” He swung his gaze to Clint and Natasha and began interrogating, “Why is there a stranger eating lunch with assassins?”

Before Darcy could answer Clint spoke up, “Because she’s here for Phil’s funeral. I asked last week if she could stay here until she gets an apartment.”

Tony paused his rant and looked at her again, “Wait, you’re telling me that _she’s_ Agent two point oh? She’s not even wearing a suit! And her socks don’t match!”

Startled, Darcy looked down to see that he was right, peeking out from under he left pant leg was a dark blue sock but clearly on her other foot the sock in question was teal. 

Tony stalked forward, reminding Darcy of an affronted cat with the way his hair stuck up in odd places, and raked her up and down with an openly assessing gaze, “Well I can see why Agent hired you.”

Darcy realized, immediately, what was being suggested and drew herself up fully on her stool, blue eyes bright with anger, and said, her voice sharp, “If you so much as _try_ to suggest that Phil was anything but a mentor and friend I swear to Thor I will taze you and use you as a footrest while I watch Top Model.” She glared fiercely and tried telling herself that slapping Tony Stark was probably a very bad life choice, no matter how tempting it might be.

As abruptly as someone flicking a switch he gave her a huge lopsided grin and rocked back on his heels as he began to laugh, “What, no Supernanny?” and he doubled over laughing.

She looked at Clint and Natasha as though to ask, ‘Is he always like this?’ Clint shrugged, grabbed an apple off the counter, produced a small knife from somewhere, and began slicing the apple into small bite sized slices off the core. Natasha just rolled her eyes and reached past Tony for an orange.

Tony’s laughter had trailed off to breathless wheezing, periodically punctuated by what sounded like him exclaiming, “Tasers! It’s always tasers!”

“At least it’s not bunnies.” was her dry rejoinder, which only served to make Tony laugh even harder.

Tony was still bent over, hands braced on his thighs, laughing, when a tall blonde man with the most impressive physique Darcy had ever seen on a human entered the room in the company of a shorter, slightly rumpled man that reminded her of one of her lit professors from college. She immediately decided the comparison was because of the slightly too long curly brown hair, threaded with white. The blonde giant and the professor stared at Tony with mirroring expressions of concern on their faces.

“Darcy broke Tony.” Natasha offered by way of explanation. 

Tall and blonde looked concerned while the professor gave Darcy a wry grin, selected his own piece of fruit, and introduced himself, “Bruce Banner.”

She perked up, “Oh, holy cats! Jane adores your work!”

He blinked at her in confusion, “Jane?”

“Er, Doctor Foster, from Culver.” Darcy clarified. “She always said your theories on particle physics helped guide her research on reconstructing her bridge thingy to Asgard!”

Tony had stopped whooping in laughter and joined the conversation, “Doctor Foster? Tiny woman with a big voice and a scary smart brain?”

She swung around to look at Tony, who was still flushed from his laughing fit, “That’d be the one. She’s about ninety pounds of pure crazy.” she had a flash of insight, “Wait? Is Jane here?”

Bruce shook his head, “She left a few days ago after yelling at every SHIELD official she could get her hands on.”

Clint piped up, “Rumor has it she yelled at Fury. But I can’t get anyone to confirm it.”

Darcy laughed, “That sounds like Jane when she’s in a tizzy about something. Utterly fearless.”

“Excuse me.” rumbled the tall blond man. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Oh! Um.” she said, unexpectedly flustered. “Darcy Lewis. Um. Agent Darcy Lewis. SHIELD. Are you from Asgard or something? You’re huge. I mean you look like you could be Thor’s brother with a better haircut.” she trailed off.

Sheepishly he rubbed the back of his neck, “No, just from Brooklyn. Steve Rogers ma’am.”

She visibly winced, “Okay, please don’t ever call me ‘ma’am’ again. That’s my mother or maybe my grandmother.”

“Yes ma - er Miss Lewis.” she was startled to realize he was blushing. “So, what do you do for SHIELD?” he asked.

Tony looked back and forth at Steve and Darcy, something speculative in his expression, before adding, “Yes Lewis, what _do_ you do for our illustrious government and tell me why I shouldn’t kick you out of my house right now. I warned Fury I was not opening a home for wayward intelligence officers and spies.”

“I’ll let you know when they figure it out. Starting Monday I’m working for Agent Sitwell.” she said, really wishing she knew more about her new assignment. “I’ll need to find an apartment I can afford with my student loans.”

“Sitwell’s been assigned as the Avengers liaison.” supplied Natasha.

“What? No! We do not need liaising. Absolutely NO liaising with SHIELD. It’s bad enough I’ve got spies living under my roof.” whined Tony.

“Oh grow up Stark.” chided Clint at the same time Steve spoke, “Well I can’t imagine that’s going to take much of his time. Aliens don’t invade every week.” 

The group fell to a friendly bickering about the likelihood of aliens invading on a schedule, which Darcy watched with increasing bemusement. Eventually Tony towed Bruce off for something scientific, Steve politely said it was nice to meet her and left to god knows where in the enormous building, Natasha murmured a quiet goodbye and slipped away, leaving only Clint and Darcy in the kitchen.

Clint shifted, awkwardly, “I need to go take care of somethings. But do you need anything?”

“I’ve been sleeping most of the day, I’m pretty wired, can I go out or do I need to stick around here?”

“Just let Jarvis know you’re going out and he can let you back in.” 

“Great. Who’s Jarvis?”

A slightly electronic, cultured British voice spoke, “Good afternoon Agent Lewis.”

Darcy jumped, looking around for the source of the voice.

Clint chuckled, “Jarvis is the AI Tony built. He’s pretty much the one in charge. Well him or Pepper, but she’s not here right now.”

“As you say Agent Barton.”

She remembered something Phil had said when she first arrived in Los Angeles and began giggling. Clint looked at her sidelong, as though to say ‘the hell?’. 

Getting her giggles under control she finally offered, “Phil warned me about Tony Stark’s AI. I thought he was just pulling my leg. Hey, Jarvis, there aren’t any cats, sharks, or zombies around here are there?”

“There are no felines or sharks on the premises. The presence of zombies is arguable depending on how recently sir has slept or imbibed caffeine.”

She grinned, “Awesome.”

Clint gave her an amused look as he left the room, “I’ll let you get acquainted. On behalf of Phil I feel obligated to point out that plotting world domination with Tony Stark’s AI is probably a breach of your employment contract with SHIELD.”

“Psst.” she said before sticking her tongue out at his retreating back, “We would be totally benevolent dictators, wouldn’t we Jarvis?”

“I think, perhaps, you may be unfamiliar with the definition of one of those words Agent Lewis. Shall I provide you with the appropriate reference materials?” 

Darcy laughed, and said, “Jarvis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter - Phil's funeral, Darcy meets the Director, and starts to suspect something may be rotten in Denmark.
> 
> -
> 
> Also chocolate with chilis and cinnamon in = yum.


	8. Mourning Edition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of Phil's funeral Darcy has breakfast with Steve, baffles Clint, is terrorized by Natasha, embarrasses Steve, threatens Tony (again), and fan-girls at Pepper; all before lunchtime.
> 
> At the funeral she wins a bet on Phil's behalf 
> 
> After the funeral she runs into Director Fury. Literally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geeze, this chapter got a lot longer than I'd intended. 
> 
> Comments and critique welcome as always.

The morning of Phil’s memorial dawned clear and warm. A near perfect early summer day with crystal blue skies and high streaky clouds. Darcy sat alone, sipping her coffee in the enormous kitchen of Stark mansion and reflected on the juxtaposition of funerals happening on superficially perfect days. 

Despite having slept most of her trip from California to New York she’d turned in early, slept deeply, and woken up far earlier than her usual habit. Rather than burying her head under a pillow and going back to sleep she’d made her way to the kitchen and let Jarvis quietly talk her through making a pot of coffee in the overly complicated coffee maker on the counter.

She was about to take her coffee and return to her small suite of rooms (and her e-book) when Steve jogged into the room, back from running if the state of his shirt was any indication. He bee-lined to the fridge and stopped, startled to see Darcy in the kitchen. 

“Good morning,” he said with a polite nod before opening the fridge. 

Darcy murmured, “Good morning.” in return and watched as Steve began stacking breakfast ingredients on the counter beside the stove. Eggs, cheese, tomato, bacon, and bread all made an appearance. He shook a jug of orange juice, grimaced in annoyance when the sound indicated it was less than half full, uncapped the jug, and drained it in a few short swallows. 

Sighing he rinsed the jug and dropped it in the recycling. He looked up and caught Darcy watching. He smiled sheepishly and offered. “No reason to get a glass dirty if I’m just going to finish it off.”

Darcy smiled in return and rolled her eyes. “All four of my brothers have tried that line on our folks; usually without a lot of success.”

Steve began setting pans on the stove and flicked the burner on under one, heating it for bacon. “Four brothers?” he asked, his tone light, while he began dicing tomatoes.

She shrugged. “Two older, two younger. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and all that.”

Steve stopped chopping and looked at her, confusion writ clearly across his features. “Huh?”

She gave him a playful smile. “Not a fan of Stealers Wheel then?” 

“I... Don’t know what that is.” He admitted after a moment.

Darcy gave him a sharp look. Steve didn’t look much older than she was. If she had to guess his age she’d put it somewhere around twenty-six or twenty-seven. While her taste in music was eclectic, to say the least, she’d have put money on someone her age at least being familiar with the song “Stuck In the Middle”. For no other reason that the YouTube video of the little ginger kitten rolling around in a hamster ball that showed up on practically _everyone’s_ Facebook page at least once; even all four of her brother’s.

Steve hitched a shoulder and smiled wryly as he began frying bacon. “It’s a long story. But there’s some stuff I missed. I’m trying to get caught up but things keep coming up.”

Darcy took a sip of coffee to mask her confusion. Something about Steve Rogers was setting off all sorts of ‘something isn’t right here’ alarms for her. She mulled over the problem as she watched him cook a remarkable quantity of scrambled eggs with cheese and tomato, and bacon. Unable to keep her inner monologue that way, she asked, “Cooking breakfast for everyone?”

He looked at the plate he’d just finished putting cooked bacon on and gave her another of his charming, self-conscious smiles. “No. I just eat a lot. Are you hungry? I can make you a plate.” 

She stood up and stretched, arms high over her head, shirt riding up slightly over her belly, and was surprised to see Steve blush and look away. She filed the reaction in the ever growing personal file of ‘Things that are odd about Steve’ and leaned a hip against the counter. “I could eat, thanks.” She waved her coffee cup at him. “I’m getting a refill you want some?”

“Huh, oh, yeah, coffee’d be great.” he answered, staring fixedly at the pan of cooking eggs.

Darcy topped off her cup and poured one for Steve. “You take anything in yours?” 

He dished up food onto waiting plates and was relieved to see he was at least capable of serving other people human quantities of food rather than the ‘I hope to god you have a hollow leg’ quantities on his plate. 

Steve looked up and smiled. “Black’s fine.”

Darcy doctored her own cup with plenty of milk and a sparing sprinkle of sugar and joined Steve at the counter. She ate a few bites, smiled, and gave him a thumbs up of approval. He smiled in return and seemed about to say something when Clint shuffled into the room and went straight to the coffee maker.

Clint slumped in a chair, clutching his coffee cup, and blinked at Darcy blearily. “You have breakfast.” he observed dully.

She finished chewing and replied. “Yes, Steve offered to share his eggs. Where he’s putting the rest of them I’m actually sort of afraid to consider. The last time I saw someone eat that much was Thor. Are you sure he’s not Asgardian?” She jerked a thumb at Steve.

Clint huffed. “Nah, Cap’s just a bottomless pit. You should see him put away schwarma.”

Steve glared half heartedly at Clint as Darcy filed away the nickname ‘Cap’ in her list of things about Steve. Happy had called him Captain Rogers earlier so it stood to reason he was military. He also wasn’t on Coulsons roster of operatives so whoever Steve Rogers was, he wasn’t SHIELD. What he was seemed to be a six foot tall mystery with impressive pecs and a chiseled jaw to make a male model swoon with envy. Darcy quickly reigned in her wandering thoughts before she could blurt out something embarrassing.

Clint cradled his coffee between his hand and slowly drain his cup one careful swallow at a time while Darcy and Steve ate. Eventually he seemed to reach a critical caffeine to blood ratio and stood, wandering past Darcy. His hand darted out to snatch a piece of bacon from her plate, without thinking she slapped his hand away. “Get your own damn food.”

“Ow! What’d you do that for?” He shook the sting from his abused hand and gave her a put upon look.

Darcy poked at him with her fork. “I swear you’re a worse mooch than Nate.” 

Clint scooted out of range of the stabbing fork and glared at her for second before turning his displeasure on Steve who was intently studying his plate, the corners of his mouth twitching. 

“Are you laughing at me Cap?”

Steve looked up and shook his head, humor dancing in his eyes. “Don’t know why I’d laugh at you for getting smacked around by a dame.”

Darcy’s eyebrows flew up and she gave him an incredulous look. “‘Dame?!’ Really?” She stared at him and watched the blush crawl up his cheeks to the tips of his ears. Finally she shook her head in disbelief. “Well I guess it beats being called a ‘girl’ all the time because I’m short.” and she shot Clint a dirty look, daring him to comment.

Steve made a strange sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh before asking. “So how do you know Thor and about Asgard?”

Darcy gave Clint a questioning look, trying to figure out what she would be allowed to tell this relative stranger. Clint nodded, almost imperceptibly, and she relaxed as she answered. “Well I guess you know he’s not from around here. When he was here last he wasn’t himself at first. No hammer. Just a super studly nordic dude who fell out of the sky and started wandering around New Mexico, freaking out interns and scientists. He was really agitated and wouldn’t stop shouting, I thought he was going to grab me; so I tased him.”

Steve drew his brows together and looked confused. “Tased?” 

She cocked her head and looked at him sidelong. “Are you sure you aren’t from Asgard? Tased him, you know, with a taser.” At Steve’s continued expression of confusion she clarified. “Small, non-lethal, self defense device that carries a highly charged electric current. Lets you electrocute someone who’s attacking you. Super useful for girls traveling alone in unfamiliar cities. When I went away to Culver dad insisted I get one.” She paused and waited to see if Steve had any other questions, after a moment she continued. “Anyway, I tased him. Further shenanigans ensued. He and Jane made serious goo-goo eyes at each other. Jane’s equipment got stolen by SHIELD, which is how I met Agent Coulson. Thor eventually got his hammer back and saved the day. We eventually got Jane’s equipment back, but not my iPod. And I spent, like, four weeks calling the number on Coulson’s card harassing him for my iPod. Which ended up being in one of Jane’s boxes of equipment.”

“I see.” said Steve, still confused.

Clint clapped him on the shoulder. “Just ask Sitwell for the New Mexico file. That’ll probably make more sense.”

Darcy stopped short, whoever Steve was he clearly had clearance to otherwise confidential files. _The mystery of Steve Rogers continues_ , she thought idly. Sighing internally she decided solving Steve could wait for a later time and that maybe figuring out what his story was would be easier when she wasn’t being distracted by stealing little glances at his impressive physique. 

Changing the topic she asked Clint. “So, what time is the thing for Phil today?”

Clint tensed, shoulders hunching slightly, and his expression pained. “The memorial is at one and I think Stark’s planning to host something here after that. He said funerals need alcohol.”

Steve reached out and placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder, clearly as a sign of comfort and solidarity. Darcy wondered what it was about Phil’s death that had so upset her friend. She’d known that Clint and Phil worked together. From the archived files she’d spent the last few weeks reviewing knew they’d had a working relationship for the previous eight years. Her best guess was that Clint felt somehow responsible for Phil’s death, which made very little sense to her.

Making a note to corner Clint for some more information she simply nodded and decided not to push. “I’m going to get going,” she said simply, “I need to call my folks.” She slipped out of the room with a friendly wave to the men.

In the hall on her way to her room she passed Natasha, who was wearing simple black exercise gear. The other woman fell into step, making creepily little noise, beside Darcy as she made her way up the stairs. “A word if you please?” asked the assassin.

Hesitantly Darcy replied, “Sure. What do you need?” She glanced at Natasha, trying to divine what the other woman wanted.

“I know you’re starting with Sitwell on Monday, but I’d like you to meet me in the gym at seven tomorrow morning. He’s asked me to take you on as a student.” began Natasha without preamble. “I’ve accessed your training records from Quantico and Los Angeles. You’ve had a good start, but you’re sloppy and you telegraph your kicks, especially on your left. We’ll begin with some basic sparring so I can do my own assessment. Wear something you can get dirty in.”

Darcy swallowed, hard, her mouth suddenly dry at the idea of sparring with the infamous specialist. “Should I leave a copy of my last will and testament on the nightstand before we spar?”

Natasha smirked at her, a terrifying expression that did nothing to soothe Darcy’s nerves. “That shouldn’t be necessary, but it never hurts to be prepared.” She smiled again and stopped at a door before Darcy’s. “Until later.” Natasha stepped into her room and shut the door.

Internally Darcy groaned. She’d expected to continue her combat training, but not in one on one sessions with Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, who was universally considered to be one of the most badass female specialists in SHIELD. The version of her file that Darcy had been able to access was heavily redacted with little black lines; eventually she’d been able to dig a little further and find another version of the file that was less redacted. No amount of digging had turned up any information on family, birth date, or city of origin.

In her own room Darcy began preparing for the afternoon. She lay out a simple black knee length dress she’d found languishing in a forgotten corner of her limited travel wardrobe. She took a moment to add ‘get the rest of my clothes’ to her growing to-do list, along with ‘find an apartment’, ‘buy another suit’, ‘talk to Clint’, and ‘stop ogling Steve’. Of the list she was sure that last one was going to be the hardest to achieve. Steve was _very_ ogle worthy, if a bit stunted in his musical tastes. Packing that line of thinking carefully away she picked up her phone to call her parents.

She’d finished toweling her hair dry and was wrapped up in the fluffy bathrobe the ensuite bathroom had come with when she heard a knocking at her door. “Just a sec!” she called. 

She pulled the door open and was shocked to see Steve in full military dress. Almost immediately he began flushing brightly and apologizing. “I’m really sorry Miss Lewis. Tony asked me to come up and see when you’d be ready to go.”

Darcy whistled lowly. “Gotta love a man in uniform,” she murmured under her breath before answering. “I need, like, twenty minutes. Is that okay or am I holding people up?”

He continued to dutifully stare at the door frame just to her left. “No, I’m sure that’s fine. I don’t think Natasha has come down yet either.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Well in that case I’m fine. Tell Stark to keep his pants on. Girls take longer to get dressed. I’ll see you down there then.”

“Erm, right.” said Steve, the tips of his ears still suspiciously red, and he turned to go. 

Darcy took a few seconds to appreciate the view; broad shoulders, straight back, trim waist, and well tailored pants. She closed her door and added ‘send Steve’s tailor a thank you note’ to her to-do list.

Twenty minutes later Darcy was dressed and ready to go. She stepped into the hall and realized she wasn’t sure where people were gathering “Jarvis?” 

“Yes Miss Lewis?” 

“Where is everyone?”

There was a short pause. “Sir, Miss Potts, Agent Barton, Captain Rogers, and Doctor Banner are in the lounge. Agent Romanoff is still in her quarters.”

“Great. Now how do I get to the lounge, and do I need to worry about being offed by some lunatic with a candlestick? Because really this place is like visiting Clue mansion.”

“Down the stairs, to your left, third door. And you should be entirely safe from individuals with candlesticks, rope, knives, lead pipes, revolvers, or wrenches. I do suggest that if you see Sir with any of the aforementioned items the appropriate course of action is to yell for Miss Potts.”

Darcy giggled. “What if I see Natasha or Clint with any of those things?” 

“In that event Miss Lewis I can only hope that you run faster frightened than they do angry.”

She snickered and thanked Jarvis as she made her way down the stairs.

Darcy quietly slipped into the lounge. In the far corner Clint was deep in conversation with Steve. Tony and Bruce had their heads together over a tablet, the former animatedly gesturing as he expounded on some point that he felt needed emphasis. Seated on a long, low, sofa was a lithe woman in a simply tailored charcoal grey sheath dress, intently focused on her own tablet screen, red blonde hair falling in a straight line.

Tony glanced up from his enthusiastic explanation and spotted her lingering in the doorway. “Agent Two Point Oh!” he called out, drawing attention to her.

She smoothed her skirt and smiled. “Stark, I swear if you keep calling me that I will put motor oil in your coffee.”

The woman in grey scoffed as she stood, crossing the room to greet Darcy. “You’re assuming he’d even notice. He lets one of his robots make him coffee back home in Malibu and I’m pretty sure it’s equal parts coffee grounds, motor oil, and spirulina.” She smiled a slightly distant and reserved smile as she extended her hand. “Pepper Potts. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I hear you worked with Phil.”

Darcy took the taller woman’s hand and was surprised at the business like handshake. “Darcy Lewis, and I don’t think I worked _with_ Phil so much as let him talk me into taking a job where I’d end up working FOR him. I’m not sure how much of a distinction it is, but eh.” She shrugged and continued. “Though I have to say it’s awesome to meet you. I wrote a paper on you in a poli sci class on women in business who have have been using their influence in the political arena and how it’s changing the face of lobbying.”

Pepper’s smile warmed. “Really? I’m flattered.”

Tony strolled over and settled an arm around Pepper’s waist. “Should I be offended that you wrote about Pepper and not me?”

Darcy quirked an eyebrow at him and smirked. “You aren’t the female CEO of a multinational, billion-dollar corporation who has been publicly championing women's rights in third world countries. Or being an outspoken critic on domestic matters related to restriction of reproductive rights in the US. I wanted to write about a kick ass woman. And unless there’s something you’d like to share with the rest of the class, you don’t qualify.”

Tony opened his mouth to reply and Pepper interrupted him. “Tony, no. Just don’t. You’ll lose because I’ll take her side. And then Natasha will take her side, and then you’ll just look like a tool. So, no.”

Natasha entered the room in a coal black dress. “Who’s side am I taking?” 

Pepper smiled at the other red-head in greeting and said, “Not Tony’s.” 

Natasha paused to consider this before cocking her head to the side and shrugging slightly, as though accepting the wisdom of Pepper’s declaration. 

Tony grumbled. “I’ll be so glad when we can go back home to Malibu. No more back stabby spies.”

Pepper absently kissed the side of his head and murmured. “We can go home tomorrow.”

Darcy looked away. She was uncomfortable witnessing the casual intimacy and affection between the CEO and her superhero boyfriend. It reminded her a little too much of the same easy affection her parents would share.

She excused herself and moved across the room, approaching Steve and Clint. 

“Miss Lewis.” said Steve with a nod, his expression otherwise a polite mask.

“Hey Steve, do you mind if I borrow Clint for a sec?” she asked, touching Clint’s elbow.

“Sure, I wanted to thank Miss Potts for a book she loaned me.” He gave her a half smile and another of his brisk nods and left Darcy and Clint standing together.

Clint cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do I want to know why the worlds biggest boy scout is afraid to make eye contact with you?”

Darcy sighed and tugged Clint over to a small sofa, set against the far wall of the room. “Stark’s a jerk and sent Steve up to see if I was ready yet. I was still wearing a robe and a towel when I opened the door, I think he tried to spontaneously combust from embarrassment. Where on earth did you find him anyway? Is he the guy who was dressed up like Captain America in all the news footage?”

“What’s your clearance level?” parried Clint.

“Five, though Coulson seemed to think I’d make six by the end of the year. Said he had a bet going with someone that I could.” She resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest defensively.

Clint pushed his ever present sunglasses to perch on top of his head and regarded her with his cool grey gaze before saying, “The Arctic Circle.” He tipped his glasses back down to hide his eyes again.

“Holy non-sequitur Batman.” She looked at him as though she expected him to start stripping off his neat black suit and run out of the room stark naked while singing Christmas carols.

He shook his head. “You’re going to find this out when you get the run down from Sitwell, but Steve there, isn’t some guy who dressed like Captain America. He _is_ Captain America. Born in 1919, scientifically juiced up on some super solider serum, fought in World War Two, and all that jazz. Turns out when the history books said he died they were wrong. He just got frozen in the mother of all ice cubes when his plane crashed. We found him and thawed him out just a few weeks before Thor’s brother decided to stage an invasion.”

Darcy stared at Clint, dumbstruck. She stole another quick glance at Steve, who appeared to be earnestly thanking Pepper for something. Things began falling into place. Steve’s excruciatingly impeccable manners, not getting her references to music, his bashful awkwardness, and his odd use of slang. She grabbed Clint’s arm. “Please, please, tell me Phil got to meet him?”

Clint gave her a wry smile. “I wasn’t there for it, but yeah, Phil got to meet him. I’m told he was only a eight out of ten on the total dork scale.”

She gave a low whistle. “Wow, I wish I could have seen that. Which actually raises the question, after all this I want to talk to you. I heard something when I was in LA that freaked me out, and you’re acting weird.” Clint slid his glasses down his nose and quirked an eyebrow at her. “Weirder.” she clarified.

He slid his glasses back up his nose. “What did you hear?”

She twisted the hem of her skirt in her hands. “I was working with a team to figure out who was alive and dead after New Mexico exploded. Erik’s name came up as missing, and so did yours. I freaked out and sent you a message, and I sent one to Phil. He eventually answered to say you and Erik were captured. That was the last I heard from him. The next time I saw you was on a security cam feed right before you jumped off that building. Which, by the way, I’m still angry at you for.”

Clint snorted. “I think Nat’s going to be beating me to the mat for months for that stunt. Medical was picking glass out of my back for hours. Look Darce, I... Remember when I said I wasn’t alright?” She nodded. “It’s because of when Phil said I was captured. I just can’t... Not right now, okay?” His voice was plaintive and he seemed to be asking for her understanding.

She reached out and placed a hand over his. “Okay.” She glanced up and saw Steve watching them intently. 

Clint seemed about to say something else when Happy and another driver entered the room. Happy spoke with Tony and Tony began beckoning people forward. “Alright folks it’s show time.”

Darcy heard Clint sigh almost inaudibly as they stood.

A bit of shuffling eventually found Tony, Bruce, Pepper, and Steve in one vehicle with Darcy, Natasha, and Clint in the other. 

As they settled themselves in the car Natasha said, “Sitwell is meeting us there.”

Darcy slouched in her seat and pulled out her phone. 

Natasha gave her a curious look. “I thought SHIELD agents were restricted from using social networking sites.”

“Technically, we’re restricted from talking about our work in any capacity beyond a vague ‘Work is totally crazy today’ status. Phil wanted me to give it up entirely, but I pointed out it would be a lot more suspicious if I stopped posting cat videos and bitching about my latte going cold. I’ve practically been grafted to the internet since middle school.” Darcy looked up at the other woman. “I’m not sure if Phil ever really agreed with me, or if he just stopped arguing with me.”

Natasha hummed in a way that Darcy wasn’t sure if she should interpret as agreement or not before lapsing back into silence. 

The sedan pulled up in front of a nondescript brick building and Darcy followed Clint and Natasha out of the car. Darcy gave the building a critical look. “This isn’t a church.”

Natasha glanced at Darcy, her expression neutral. “Phil wasn’t exactly religious. This serves well enough for a memorial. Stark offered to host it, but was overruled by the Director.”

Darcy trailed the spies into the building and hung back slightly. It felt unbearably awkward to be meeting people who’d worked with and known Phil for years at his funeral. She let Clint and Natasha move ahead to find seats on their own while she chose a seat for herself further back that she hoped would be inconspicuous. Tony, Pepper, Bruce, and Steve all moved past her to take seats closer to the front of the room. Steve spared her a brief glance and seemed to pause a moment, but she shooed him along with a little flick of her fingers.

Sitwell slipped into the seat beside her. “I see you’ve survived your introduction to Stark.”

“He seemed to like me well enough after I threatened him with violence. For a man who pilots a high tech suit of armor he’s really not right in the head.”

He took off his glasses and cleaned them. “How long did it take you to threaten him?”

She considered the question a moment before answering, “Under a minute I’d say.”

Sitwell pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his suit pocket and handed it to her. “Phil said it would take you under two minutes. I thought it would be five. Congratulations you get Phil’s money.”

Darcy plucked the money from his hand and deftly slipped it in her bag. “Thanks. I think.” 

Before she could ask what the odds were on her inevitable demise at Natasha’s hands in training Sitwell asked quietly. “See the man in the long black coat speaking with Clint?”

She glanced around and immediately saw the man in question. “The one who looks he escaped the Matrix only to decide his life’s ambition was to become a pirate?”

Sitwell made a strangled sound that startled Darcy. She realized he was desperately trying not to laugh and found herself having trouble containing her own snickers of amusement. Eventually Sitwell got himself under control and pinned her with what she was sure he meant to be a quelling look that fell just short of the mark; she’d experienced Phil’s quelling looks and been mostly uncowed. Sitwell, she decided, just wasn’t quite up to Phil’s level of menace.

Once he seemed to be willing to trust his voice Sitwell continued. “The man in the coat is Director Fury. The tall woman with dark hair beside him his Assistant Director Hill. I doubt you’ll cross their radars much at first, but it’s always good to know what the people up top look like if you need to report to one of them.”

“So you’re telling me the guy who’s in charge of SHIELD is a pirate? And his first mate looks like she hasn’t smiled since I was in middle school.” Darcy whispered back.

The corner of Sitwells mouth twitched again. “I think I see what Phil meant when he told me that you had the most disconcerting habit of saying whatever came to mind.”

She patted his shoulder in sympathy. “You think this is bad, you should have met me in New Mexico. At least now about fifteen percent of the time I don’t say the first thing I think of. I’ve grown as a person. Go team me.” She gave him a cheerful smile and thumbs up.

Darcy was interrupted from continuing to educate Sitwell on her recent personal growth. Director Fury stepped up to the podium at the front of the room. He stood, hands braced in front of him as he swept the room with a baleful single eyed glare. Near perfect silence fell with a speed that Darcy thought her mother, who taught middle school, would envy. 

The director waited a heartbeat and then spoke. “Phil Coulson was a pain in my ass. Even when he followed a direct order he was a pain in my ass. The man was the worst sort of rules lawyer. He knew every loophole and he knew _exactly_ how to use it. He was also one of the bravest assholes I’ve ever known. Which is why we’re here today. Because he was a brave asshole who went down swinging. I’ve been to too many funerals this week for men and women who died under my command in the Chitauri invasion and I’ve hated every single goddamn one of them. I hate this one too.” Fury took a deep breath. “I think everyone here in this room has a story to tell about Phil. Instead of a bunch of empty platitudes and empty lip service to a faith that Phil was raised in, but didn’t believe in, I’d like to open the microphone to anyone in this room who has a story to tell about Phil. A bet you lost to him. Or a time he saved your ass. There are a select few who might even be willing to share a time they saved Phil’s ass. So that’s it. The floor’s yours,” he gestured to the room. “Now get your asses up here.” Fury stepped down to take a chair beside Assistant Director Hill.

As though Fury’s statement had been a benediction men and women began standing in an orderly line to the left of the podium and one by one began to speak.

During a short lull between speakers Darcy leaned over to Sitwell and soberly asked. “I thought this was a funeral. But I don’t see a casket. Not to be morbid, but why isn’t there a body?”

Sitwell grimaced. “I don’t have clearance for the whole story, but from what I was told Phil was killed with a piece of alien tech. For security reasons his body was cremated.”

Darcy flicked her gaze around the room, there, near the podium was a picture of Phil looking severe and unsmiling in a dark blue suit. But there was no sign of an urn of ashes. “Again with the not trying to be morbid, but if people are cremated don’t they usually have an urn at the funeral? Or did Phil have family who just got a jar of ash and some cover story?”

“He wasn’t close to his family. This job tends to be rough on family connections. I’m sure they’ve been notified, and you’re right, they probably got his ashes and a cover story. They’ll have their own funeral for him,” said Sitwell with a slight frown.

She made a face. She thought it was incredibly fucked up and sad. 

Clint spoke next, telling the story of how he’d mistaken Coulson’s mild mannered appearance for weakness when they’d first met, and just how the older man had convinced him otherwise.

Eventually the speakers wound down and Assistant Director Hill stepped up. “Phil Coulson was a good man. It was my honor and pleasure to serve with him these past ten years. He was the agents agent. A standard we should all hold ourselves to. He used every weapon at his disposal, sometimes in the most unconventional ways, and sometimes even things that had no business being weapons in the first place. I will miss Agent Coulson for his unflappable nature and unerringly good judgement. I will miss my friend Phil for his sarcastic wit and ability to drink anyone but Romanoff under the table. Thank you for being here today.” She stepped down, her face a stony mask.

People shifted and prepared to stand when Tony bounded up to the microphone. “Agent used to threaten to tase me. I think it was a form of misplaced affection. In the spirit of misplaced affection there is free food and booze at my place in a hour. You’re all spies, you figure out where.” Tony returned to his chair where Pepper swatted the back of his head.

An hour later at the mansion Darcy was fetching herself a drink from the kitchen when she ran headlong into Director Fury, spilling most of her drink on his shoes. “Shit!” she exclaimed as he yelled, “Fuck!” and jumped back.

She blinked, owlishly at the director before darting back to the kitchen for a towel which she then brandished at him awkwardly. He snatched it out of her hands and bent over to soak up some of the liquid. He stood back up, glowering. “What the hell?”

Darcy stepped back. “You’re kind of sneaky for a big guy.”

Fury just glared at her.

“Er, boss. You’re kind of sneaky for a big guy, boss. Honestly though I was sort of hoping to get through my first couple of months without ever drawing attention to myself. At least not by throwing my drink on you. Well not unless you did something really awful, or I caught you trying to stare down my shirt,” she rambled.

Fury’s glare faded into bemused annoyance. “Are you really Phil’s latest recruit?”

“If I say yes will you stop trying to glare me to death?” she asked, crossing her arms.

He shook his head. “Jesus. Phil what were you thinking?”

Darcy straightened up and gave him a glare of her own. “He thought I’d be a good agent.”

“Phil’s been wrong before,” growled the Director. 

His tone set her teeth on edge. She folded her arms over her chest.  
“I’m sure he has, but at least give me a chance before you decide he was wrong about me.”

Fury stared at her, as though trying to solve a particularly complex problem. “I can’t tell if you’re just fearless or stupid.”

“If those are my only two choices I go with fearless. Unless we’re talking about spiders, and then there is girly screaming and I start throwing shit. Eight legs...Ugh!” She shuddered dramatically for effect.

“Christ on a cracker, leave it to Phil to add to his island of misfit agents,” muttered Fury. “Can you at least follow orders?”

“I can, but I reserve the right to question stupid ones or not follow them at all. If you want someone who can be just another cog in the machine you can find someone else. If you want someone who can learn and think on the fly, then we can talk.” she answered, firmly.

“In case you missed the memo, this is a paramilitary organization! You can’t just decide to not follow orders.” Fury roared.

Darcy abruptly changed tactics. “Haven’t you ever refused to follow a dumbass decision?”

Fury’s eye narrowed. “That’s not the point.”

“No, I think it is. I’m not saying I’m above following orders, I’m just saying that if they’re dumb, I’m going to question them. So instead of yelling at me why don’t you try not giving me dumbass orders.” she demanded.

Fury rocked back on his heels slightly and gave her a long, level look. “Huh.” he finally said. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you.” He spun on heel, making his coat flare out around him, and stalked the other way.

Darcy stood in the hall holding a sopping wet towel as she watched the retreating back of the Director. “The fuck?” she asked the otherwise empty kitchen.

Rather than rejoining the other agents and Avengers who were scattered throughout the mansion, drinking and reminiscing about Phil Darcy asked Jarvis. “I need some fresh air, is there somewhere I can get outside without leaving the building?”

“Would the roof suffice?” 

She nodded before she answered. “Sure that’s fine.”

Jarvis gave her directions for reaching the roof and she slipped away. On the roof she leaned against the railing and looked down on the street below, watching pedestrians, cyclists, and cars go by.

She turned when she heard footsteps behind her. “Hey Stark. What’re you doing up here?”

He shrugged. “A little bird told me you went to the roof after an unfortunate run in with the Dread Pirate Fury.”

Darcy pursed her lips in irritation. “I spilled most of a cranberry soda on him and then started an argument about following orders.”

Tony had been taking a sip of an amber liquor and did a spit take. “You did _what_?!” he croaked. “Oh, I will have to check if Jarvis got footage of that.”

She rolled her eyes and turned back to watching the street. “You are such a twelve year old boy.”

Tony came up beside her and settled against the railing before offering his tumbler. “Twenty one year old scotch.” 

She accepted the drink and took a careful taste. “Bleh, still too smoky for my tastes, I like bourbon better.” Darcy regarded the liquid in the glass. “Should I trust the Director?”

Tony blinked and furrowed his brow. “Well that’s a loaded question if I’ve ever heard one. I mean of course I trust him on some level, or I wouldn’t have ever been talked into the whole ‘save the world’ thing. But do I trust him not to manipulate the numbers if it serves his purpose? No, not any further than I could throw him out of the suit. Why are you asking?”

Darcy nodded and took another sip, her grimace slightly less the second time. “Because something isn’t adding up. Just the tone of some of the things he said today. I can’t put my finger on it, and it’s going to drive me nuts. I think he’s hiding something.”

Scoffing Tony reclaimed his glass. “Of course he’s hiding something. He’s a spy. Which by definition means lying and hiding. Technically you’re a spy too now.” He took a slug of scotch from the glass. “What do you think he’s hiding?”

She looked at him sideways. “You’re going to think I’m nuts.” He snorted. “More nuts,” she amended.

He smirked and saluted her with his glass. “Go for it.”

“I think he’s lying about how Phil died. I mean, why no body? Why no ashes? I just don’t think it makes sense. I don’t know maybe I’m being paranoid because now I’m one of the jack booted thugs who stole Jane’s research. Something isn’t quite adding up.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Maybe I’m just grasping for straws.”

Tony regarded her seriously. “Agent wanted you as his understudy for a reason. Maybe he thought you had good instincts. I say trust those. Do a little digging with Jarvis and see what you turn up. I’m going back to Malibu but there’s enough server space that I can keep a module to him open here. If Fury’s lying about how Phil died I want to know.” He knocked back the rest of the whiskey and turned to go. “And you’re still Agent Two Point Oh as far as I’m concerned until I can think of something else to call you that won’t get me punched or tased.”

Darcy continued to watch the city as Tony left. She pretended the tears spilling out over her lashes were from the light reflecting off a nearby building. It was much preferable to thinking that Tony Stark had made her cry by being kind.


	9. This may not be Denmark; but something’s rotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy learns an important lesson while training with Natasha and Clint; spies cheat.
> 
> She conspires (and snarks) with Jarvis.
> 
> Sitwell brings his team what should be a straightforward mission. Of course, nothing ever goes as planned and someone from Darcy's past shows up to throw a spanner in the works.
> 
> Chaos ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was made IMMEASURABLY better because of the wonderful beta work of [thisisevenharderthannamingablog](http://thisisevenharderthannamingablog.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr and [pizzagirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pizzagirl/profile) here.
> 
> Thank you. This chapter is seriously about ten million times better. I want to bake you cookies.
> 
> All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> WARNING: There is violence in this chapter and people shooting people.

Natasha grabbed Darcy’s arm and tugged, hard. Darcy found herself momentarily airborne. She twisted and tucked her shoulder as she came down, and used her momentum to tumble to her feet. She spun around and brought her hands up in a defensive stance as the other woman stalked toward her. 

The spy stopped just outside of Darcy’s reach and crossed her arms. “That was better.” Darcy held her defensive stance. In the week since she’d begun training daily with Natasha she had learned to never let her guard down until the other woman said to. “Another few weeks and you should be ready for a field assignment.” It startled Darcy into letting her stance slip for a fraction of an instant. 

Natasha lunged forward with a vicious combination of empty handed strikes and kicks that Darcy was hard pressed to defend against. She barely managed to deflect the first strike, before she dodged away from the next. Natashas foot flew out in a kick that Darcy managed to block and then turn into a grab. She grasped the other woman’s leg and yanked, jerking Natasha off balance. She followed up her advantage by using the leverage to _shove_ her opponent away. She darted forward to set up her own attack, only to find herself swept off her feet from behind. She landed on her back with a thud and looked up to see Clint smirking down.

“You cheated!”

Clint waggled his fingers at her in greeting before pointing to himself with a cocky grin. “Spy!”

She glared up at the archer. Darcy darted her hand out to snag his ankle and pulled as hard as she could. Clint squawked and tumbled down to the mat in an inelegant heap.

Natasha stood back, arms crossed and regarded them with barely concealed amusement. “If you two are done playing, Darcy still has twenty minutes of hand to hand. Clint, Darcy needs to start sparring with someone else. Since you decided to crash our lesson, you’re it.”

Clint rolled to his feet, with an ease that Darcy envied. “This isn’t a game of tag ‘Tasha.”

“It is now,” she said with a serene smile. She sauntered off the mat and began toweling sweat from her face.

“Come on, you’d better get up or she’s going to kick both our asses.” Clint said to Darcy, offering her a hand up.

Darcy grinned. “One sec, I want to see if I can do that flip thingy to stand up.” She matched action to words, planted her hands up by her head, rocked her hips and feet off the floor, arched her back, and pushed off. She sprang to her feet and took a few steadying steps forward when she put a little too much energy into the initial motion. “Alright!” she cheered, pumping her fist in the air. “Did it!” She continued to shimmy around the small training room in celebration while Natasha and Clint looked on in tolerant amusement.

Once Tony and Pepper had retired back to Malibu Darcy, Clint, and Natasha had all moved into temporary SHIELD housing. It was a rough step up from a cheap hotel and many steps down from the guest quarters they’d enjoyed in the Stark mansion. 

Before he had left, Tony had given her a StarkPad tablet and explained it would be her link to Jarvis. She would be able to access and speak with the AI, though she’d only have a limited amount of his processing power at her disposal. She felt it was a reasonable arrangement, but she hadn’t yet been able to have Jarvis begin any of the searches she wanted; if she was going to start investigating the circumstances surrounding Phil’s death she didn’t want to be doing it from a StarkPad in the heart of SHIELD headquarters or housing.

Darcy was still hunting for an apartment she could afford, that wasn’t a cockroach infested rat hole. So far her luck had been thin; she might have been granted level five clearance, but her pay grade was still set for a junior agent with no field experience. She had a lead on a place, through a friend of Nate’s, but wasn’t going to be able to go see it until the following week.

None of that mattered in the face of the immediate victory of having managed to flip herself up from a prone position to her feet. She skipped up to Clint and stuck her fist out to him for a congratulatory bump.

Natasha gave her a half smile. “A decent first time. Next time I don’t want to see those steps forward. You need to be able to come down, in stance, ready to fight. Now get back on the mat; I want to see how you fight against someone else.” 

Clint slung an arm around Darcy’s shoulders. “Come on kid, show me what you’ve got.”

Darcy took several steps toward the mat with his arm around her shoulders. At the edge of the mat she reached up, grasped his forearm, stepped back under his arm and, using her lower center of gravity and their momentum, threw Clint to the mat. He’d barely landed on his back before he was scrambling to his feet, cursing, while Darcy put more distance between them.

She knew Clint had the upper hand; he had years of training against her scant seven months, greater upper body strength, and superior reach. Her tactical advantages were greater flexibility, agility, and after years of fending brothers away from her plate, remarkably quick reflexes.

Their first round went quickly, Darcy fell for a feint and ended up face down on the mat, arm behind her back. She pounded the floor with her free hand, yielding.

The second round ended roughly the same as the first had, but it took Clint a little longer to bring her down. She counted that as a win.

In the third match, Clint tried to grapple with her, which she knew had no chance of ending well for her. She tried something that had worked on her youngest brother, Troy; she struggled furiously and then without warning went completely limp, throwing her opponent off balance. She used the opportunity to duck out of his hold and somersault away. 

“Good one!” called Clint. When he advanced again, she tried a strike, kick, and sweep combination she’d been drilling on with Natasha. To her complete surprise it worked, pitching Clint onto his back. When she tried to follow up on her advantage, he tackled her for the pin.

Gasping for breath ,she pounded the mat, and cursed. Clint let her up and she rolled onto her back, accepting his hand as he pulled her to her feet. 

She swiped the sweat from her face and growled, “I suck at this.”

From her position at the edge of the mat Natasha spoke up. “Actually, you’re doing surprisingly well. According to your file, other than a self-defense course in college you’ve had no formal combat training.”

“Formal training, no. Four brothers intent on being the biggest pains in the ass they could be, yes. I was badly outnumbered, especially by the time I was a teenager. Neil and Troy shot up practically overnight and suddenly they weren’t my ‘little’ brothers anymore.” replied Darcy as she jogged to the side of the mat for a drink of water.

“Give me one more round with Clint, and then you can cool down,” Natasha told her.

Darcy heaved a sigh and trotted back to the center of the mat to begin her last beat down.

As she’d expected, exhaustion made her slow and clumsy. She fell for an obvious feint and Clint jerked her off balance before giving her another impromptu flying lesson. She took the mat’s impact on her arms as she’d been taught, and rolled away. She tried to scramble to her feet as Clint closed in. Sitwell walked in.

Clint took advantage of her distraction and got an arm around her waist and his other around her neck. She stomped on his instep, eliciting a pained oath, and elbowed him in the ribs. His arm around her neck loosened. She broke free, spun, and kicked out to land a solid low blow to the outside of Clint’s leg. He staggered to the side. She tackled him, landed on his back, and got an arm around his throat. 

Clint pounded the mat twice with his fist, and Darcy staggered to her feet, gasping for air. He rolled onto his back and gave her a thumbs up. “Good job. Though you gave up your advantage when you tackled me.”

She braced her hands on her thighs, still gulping air. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Natasha tossed her a towel, which she grabbed for and missed. “Come to mock your minion Sitwell?” Darcy asked as she bent down for the towel.

“Well I was, but I think I’m going to have to reserve my mockery for Clint.” He turned to Natasha. “So, your assessment?”

Natasha said, “Good speed and agility. Excellent spatial awareness with vision correction. However, spatial awareness without vision correction is severely impaired. My recommendation is that she only go in the field with contacts and at the very least a backup set at all times in her gear. With another three to five weeks of intensive combat training, I would consider her ready for basic field work and reconnaissance.”

“What about sitting in the van and relaying situation reports?” 

Natasha shrugged with one shoulder. “That’s your call. You just asked me to work on field readiness.” She turned to Darcy. “Go stretch, we’re done for today.”

“Oh thank Thor,” she muttered and began walking in small circles on the mat to keep from stiffening up before she stretched. 

“So, what have you got for us?” asked Clint, accepting his own towel from Natasha.

“We’re still working to recover as much of the Chitauri tech and weapons as possible. We _thought_ we’d gotten most of it. Or at least all of the operational weapons. But there’s a recent report of either operational weapons or excellent look-a-likes being shipped overseas. Needless to say command is concerned. There’s a lead on US weapons dealer who has his fingers in a lot of pies. Intel points to his operation as our most probable point of origin,” reported Sitwell.

Natasha nodded. “Who’s the team?”

“You on point and Barton on backup. I’ll be running the op with Lewis on observation and support. Our lead is here in the city. A bar in Harlem with known connections to our dealers ring. The FBI has been trying to get enough evidence for warrants so they can shut it down, but they haven’t had any luck,” answered Sitwell.

“What about Steve?” Clint questioned.

Sitwell shook his head. “Captain Rogers isn’t in the city. He’s out traveling on that vintage death trap of his again. Said he wants to go all the way to California and back.”

Darcy was surprised, Steve had, by all reports, returned to his Brooklyn loft after Phil’s funeral. She had seen him once in the SHIELD gym, early one morning when she’d been waiting for Natasha to appear for their daily session of ‘Let’s kick Darcy’s ass.’ They’d exchanged friendly pleasantries for a bit before Natasha had shown up and he excused himself.

Natasha cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “How about Stark? He’s the weapons expert. Are we bringing him in on this?” 

“Not unless this gets a lot more serious. He’s been sent a briefing packet with a request to be available to give his review of the weapons we recover.” Sitwell held up a hand, cutting Clint off before he could finish opening his mouth. “And before you ask, we’re not bringing Doctor Banner in on this. We may send weapons samples to him if the energy sources are different from what we’re already familiar with, but otherwise we’re going to leave him well enough alone in his labs at Stark Tower.”

“I thought the tower was under renovation,” said Darcy as she stretched.

“It is, but Stark got most of the R & D levels cleared and gifted an entire level to Doctor Banner. The penthouse and residential floors surrounding it took the brunt of the damage in the invasion. Doctor Banner is still residing at the Stark mansion,” was Natasha’s off-hand reply.

Sometimes Darcy wondered how it was that Natasha seemed to know everything. Most of the time, she was able to contain her curiosity on the grounds that learning Natasha’s secrets would probably be the last thing she ever did. She pulled her wandering thoughts back when Sitwell spoke again. 

“Mission briefing at oh nine hundred tomorrow. Lewis, come find me when you’ve showered. You have some extra homework.”

Darcy suppressed a groan at the mention of homework and instead gave him a flippant salute. “Got it boss man. I’ll see you in a hour.”

“Make it an hour and a half and bring coffee. Lots of coffee.” He left with a business-like nod to Clint and Natasha.

Five hours later Darcy trudged out of Sitwell’s office. She had spent most of her time assisting Sitwell with the pre-op paperwork, and being quizzed on proper procedure for different kinds of ops. He’d promised her that knowing SHIELD’s complex bureaucratic system of paperwork would be important.

With wry humor Sitwell had given her a box of background information on the weapons smuggling ring in Harlem, and instructions to finish reading the first hundred pages of material before the briefing the following morning. 

“Ugh, you’re a slave driver,” she’d complained on her way out the door. Sitwell had smiled and reminded her that Phil would have expected her to read the first two hundred pages. Deciding retreat was the better part of valor she fled with the box.

She returned to her quarters, dropped the box on the floor by the door, and changed into well worn jeans, a shirt that proclaimed her as ‘Aerodynamically Curvaceous’, and her favorite boots. She promised herself that she’d do her reading _after_ she’d talked to Jarvis. She slipped her phone, wallet, StarkPad, and iPod in her messenger bag and left her drab apartment.

At a nearby cafe with wifi she bought a latte and a muffin in return for their wireless password and settled down at a small booth with excellent sight lines to the exits. She smiled ruefully as she sat; less than eight months as an employee for a covert intelligence agency and some things were already becoming second nature.

Using the fold-up keyboard Tony had given her with the pad, she typed a short greeting. “Hey Jarvis. Tony said you could help on a special project. I don’t want to do this from where I’m working or living, so I’m in a coffee shop now.” She hit enter and waited.

A return line of text appeared on the screen almost immediately. “Sir informed me of your project and I applaud your caution. This would be significantly easier if we could speak. I can more easily promise security at Stark tower. I will reserve a conference room.”

“Be there in 10,” she typed and put the pad back in her bag. She gathered her coffee and muffin and began the brisk walk to Stark Tower.

The tower lobby was a hive of activity, mostly workmen and contractors. She approached a bored-looking woman staffing the reception desk. “Um, hi. I’m Darcy Lewis. I’m here for a meeting.” She said, hoping that a meeting with an AI still counted as a meeting. 

The receptionist looked up her name and said, “Thirtieth floor, conference room B.”

“Thanks.” She made her way to the bank of elevators.

The thirtieth floor proved to be a deserted suite of offices with several large conference rooms. She found room B and let herself in. Before she could pull the pad out of her bag, Jarvis spoke. 

“Agent Lewis. I have engaged some preliminary security measures while you are here. Sound dampening and scanning for recording devices. While nothing is foolproof, this should suffice for the time being.”

She picked a chair and sat, leaning as far back as she could. “Thanks Jay. So Tony told you about my project?” 

“Sir indicated to me that you were following up on a ‘hunch’ related to Agent Coulson’s untimely demise, and that you would be enlisting my help.”

“That’s it in a nutshell. So first things first. Can you find me all of the documents related to his death? Death certificates, next of kin, wills, and that sort of thing.” She paused, nibbling thoughtfully at the side of her thumb. “Actually while you’re at it, get me everything that’s public record about Phil. Birth certificate, education history, the works.”

“I can have the public history records compiled for you and on your tablet in five minutes. A preliminary review indicates there are also military records. Those may prove more time-intensive to obtain.”

She spun in her chair. “I’ll take whatever you can get me Jarvis. And since I don’t want to get busted and hauled up in front of Fury, what’s the best way for us to keep this on the down low?”

“One moment please. I believe I have a solution.” 

She waited impatiently and continued to spin slowly in the conference chair until Jarvis spoke again.

“Agent Lewis? Please access your tablet.” How an artificial intelligence could sound smug was beyond her, but it remained damn awesome.

She placed it on the table and swiped a finger across the screen to wake it. Instead of the standard passcode screen to enter a six digit PIN, there was now a small red square. 

“Please press your right thumb to the screen.” 

She followed the instructions and waited a moment. The passcode screen appeared. Curious, she entered her passcode only to be presented with another small red square. 

“And now your left thumb please?” 

She did as requested and the pad displayed its main screen. 

“I have installed a failsafe. If you are being coerced to access the device login first with your _left_ thumb and use the PIN nine-one-one-nine-one-one.”

“What’ll happen? I mean if I’m being coerced it’s not going to help me much if it just bricks the tablet. It’ll look suspicious.” 

“If you use the failsafe to access the device, it will alert me to a possible security breach, I will copy and lock all your data to my server before deleting it from the device. The device will boot with a secondary account populated with novels, some pirated music, games, a random selection of movies, and a web browser history.”

She whistled, impressed. “That’s pretty awesome.”

“I do what I can, Agent Lewis.”

“How long will it take you to get all of the information for Phil?” 

“The public record information will be available to you shortly. Agent Coulson’s military records and information directly pertaining to his death will take approximately eighteen hours, twenty three minutes. I will notify you when the information is on your tablet.”

Darcy stretched and said, “Thanks,” She began stuffing the tablet back in her bag.

“Agent Lewis?” Jarvis’ voice seemed to indicate some degree of hesitation.

She paused, crossing her arms over her chest. “What is it Jay?”

“What will you do if you discover something untoward in the events surrounding Agent Coulson’s death?” 

Darcy clenched her hands. She could see a ghost of her reflection in the glass of the windows. She looked angry. “I’m going to make someone very sorry.”

“And if everything is as it seems?”

Her shoulders sagged. “Then I just consider this another example of having an overactive imagination, fueled by a childhood and adolescence of Bond movie marathons and lack of trust in my government. Even when I’m working for the government in question.” She shrugged and smiled wryly. “I move on. I learn my new job and hope I don’t have to shoot anyone or get shot.”

“An admirable goal. One I hope you are more successful at than Sir has been.”

Snorting she let herself out of the conference room. “How did you get to be so bitchy Jarvis?”

“I prefer to think of it as a self-defense mechanism.”

Chuckling, Darcy took the elevator back to the lobby and began her trek back to SHIELD.

Nine the next morning found Darcy in Sitwell’s office, icing her wrist and glaring at Clint. “I’m just saying if you’re going to land on me, you can be more careful about it in the future.”

“And I’m saying if you’re going to leg sweep someone when you’re already on the mat you should expect to get squished,” retorted Clint.

Sitwell looked to Natasha and asked, “How long have they been going at it?”

She rolled her eyes and looked at him over the rim of her coffee cup. “Since about thirty seconds after Clint fell on her.”

He rolled his eyes in return. “If you two are done with whatever bizarre flirtation you have going on, we have an op to plan.”

Clint and Darcy sputtered emphatic denials while Natasha and Sitwell smirked. They fell to planning, Sitwell outlining the op. Natasha would go in, disguised, under one of her many aliases as an international arms buyers representative. Another agent would go in as her bodyguard while Clint kept eyes on the outside. The goal was to make contact with a mid-level member of the weapons smuggling ring. To build trust, and if possible, arrange a buy. Sitwell explained that Natasha’s cover as a known buyers representative should make arranging an initial buy a relatively straightforward affair. Darcy and Sitwell would man the surveillance van parked in an alley around the corner. A strike team would be on standby if things went wrong. 

Once Sitwell had finished outlining the parameters of the operation he asked Darcy if she had questions.

“So what’s the chances of things are ending up OK Corral-style?” she asked.

Sitwell turned his hands up and said, “Our intelligence suggests this is a small-time domestic dealer who is just starting to develop international connections. We don’t have any reason to believe this will turn into a firefight.”

“Won’t people recognize Natasha? There were a lot of pictures from the invasion, and she’s in some of them.”

Natasha chuckled. “People see what they expect to. It’s amazing what a wig and a pair of glasses can do for people’s perception.”

Darcy gave the other woman a skeptical look, but was willing to accept she might have a point. If anyone was going to be an unquestioned authority on hiding in plain sight it would be Natasha Romanoff.

“Any other questions?” Sitwell asked.

Darcy raised her hand, which earned a scoffing sound from Clint. She threw her mostly melted ice pack at him. “When’s this happening?” 

“We have the intel, Natasha has the connections, and the back-up team is on standby. The pressure is for sooner rather than later, our go orders are for early evening. We’ll roll out at five.” He turned to the Specialists. With a wry twist to his mouth, he said, “Natasha, Clint, we got a shipment of some gadgets for you from Stark. No one wants to touch the crate, it’s down in munitions; can you go reassure them it won’t spontaneously explode if it survived overnight shipping?”

They stood. Natasha commented. “Well we are talking about Stark tech. It might just explode out of pure spite.”

“Nah,” refuted Clint. “He’s on our side now.”

Natasha gave him a flat look. “Stark is on Stark’s side. It just happened to be our side most recently. Don’t let him buy you off with a couple of trick arrows.”

Bickering about Tony’s intentions, they left the room leaving Darcy behind. She sighed and got to her feet, retrieving the ice pack she’d thrown at Clint. “You need me for anything else boss or should I just come back at five?”

Sitwell waved a hand at her in dismissal. “Finish your reading and be back at four. I want to review some ops records with you before we go in the field.”

She gave him a jaunty wave, followed by a faint wince as her wrist protested, and left the office.

By seven that evening Darcy had come to the conclusion that sitting in the surveillance van, listening to inane coms chatter from Clint and eavesdropping on Natashas verbal sparring with the arms dealers was, perhaps not the height of boredom, but at least awfully damn close. 

“Heads up.” said Clint over the comm. “I’ve got a single male, Asian, five ten, one fifty-ish, jeans, button-down, blazer, entering the bar. Don’t know why, but he looks familiar.”

Darcy pulled up the video feed from the small camera embedded in Clint’s glasses and began cursing. “Fuck. We may have a problem.”

Sitwell leaned over her shoulder and looked at the image. “We’ve had people in and out of the bar for hours. Why’s he a problem?”

Trying to control her churning stomach, she looked back over her shoulder. “Because he’s my ex-boyfriend who’s also a recent FBI academy graduate. Chances are if he’s there, it’s because the Feds are sniffing around our gun runner too. Didn’t you say they were trying to build a case?”

Sitwell threw himself into a seat with a snarled curse and began punching in a number on his phone. 

Darcy turned to her terminal and began exploiting an access point in the FBI systems that Harrison had shown her while she was working with him. As she typed, Natasha’s voice came over the comm, “I’m in the ladies room. I have ninety seconds. I’m not getting anywhere fast with these guys, and they’re acting unusually anxious. Have you got anything I can use to lean on them?”

“We have no new intel. What we do have is a possible problem; a man just entered the bar, five ten, Asian, and FBI. Name Caleb Nguyen. Recent FBI academy graduate. And I don’t fucking know what he’s doing there,” reprted Darcy. She was surprised at how calm her voice sounded, despite feeling as though vomiting might be in her near future.

Natasha’s voice was terse. “Our target is hiding something I’m having trouble getting a bead on. I can’t risk having a baby Fed trying to make an arrest.” 

“I’m in the Feds system, but I’m not finding anything for an active op here. I don’t know what’s going on. Unless he’s just got the worlds worst timing.” She called to Sitwell who loomed over the shoulder of the agent manning the other observation station. “Have we got eyes inside yet?”

“I’ve got access to a single wide-angle from a security camera inside. Feed four,” was the answer from the other agent. She thought his name was Marshall.

She switched views on her monitors and watched the grainy image as Caleb took a seat at the bar and flagged down the bartender for a drink. Darcy cursed again and toggled her comm-link. “Guys, I think he’s just got the worlds worst taste in bars.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Clint. "This kind of coincidence is too suspicious. Can you check again?” 

“Two shakes...” Darcy trailed off as she typed furiously. “Got it! He graduated about a week after I left Quantico and is on probationary assignment to the New York office. And shit, shit, shit! He’s been assigned to the task force that’s looking for dirt on our runners. I don’t think it’s an op. I think he’s just scoping it out for a lead. Bastard is too curious for his own good.”

Natasha cursed quietly in Russian. “We need to get him out. These guys are twitchy as hell. If they so much as _smell_ a Fed this is going to end in blood.”

“We’re working on it.” Sitwell reassured.

“Well work fast. My time’s up.” There was a rustling as Natasha slipped her comm from her ear back in her pocket.

Darcy watched the security feed from the bar and saw Natasha emerge from the cameras blind spot; presumably where the restrooms were located. She grimaced and watched as Caleb drank a beer.

She fidgeted and looked back at Sitwell. “Boss I’ve got an idea.” 

“Am I going to like this idea?” he asked, his expression sour.

“Probably not,” she admitted. 

He arched an eyebrow at her and motioned with his hand that he expected her to continue.

She took a deep breath and slowly let it out before speaking, trying to keep her voice even, “Let me go in. We were close. I should be able to convince him to leave with me. I’ll get him out of the bar, take him to dinner. We’ll bitch about our training officer. And I’ll let him walk me back to the apartment building.” 

Sitwell frowned. “You’re right, I don’t like it. It’s a shitty idea and you have no field experience.”

Clint spoke up from the comm. “I don’t think we’ve got a better option, sir. No one in there is going to look twice at a guy when a hot girl comes in apologizing for making him wait. But Darcy’s Romeo isn’t going to blend in and we’ve got about five minutes before someone starts getting twitchy. Make that more twitchy.”

Sitwell looked at her critically. “Can you do it?”

She twisted her mouth in a wry smile. “I get the feeling this is going to turn into a clusterfuck if I don’t. So, yeah, I can do it.”

“You’re going to have to leave your sidearm,” countered Sitwell.

She stood, took off her jacket, and slid out of her shoulder holster, draping it over her seat. “Can I take my taser?” Sitwell nodded. Darcy reached for her purse and pulled out a compact and lipstick. With sure strokes she gave herself crimson lips before taking her hair down from its clip and shaking out her mane of dark curls. Looking down critically she undid the top two buttons of her blouse, showing the lacy edge of a cream colored camisole. “How do I look?”

“Office girl who just got off work and didn’t have time to put on a dress before meeting her boyfriend for drinks,” answered Sitwell, matter-of-factly.

“That’ll have to do.” Darcy smoothed her palms over her pants to dry her sweaty palms. 

“Here,” said Sitwell gruffly. He unstrapped an ankle holster from his leg and passed her his mouse gun. “It only has a small magazine. But at least you’re armed.”

She hiked up her pant leg and strapped it to her ankle, stomping a few times after securing the Velcro to be sure it wouldn’t come loose. “Thanks boss.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He opened the van door for her. “Get in, get out. Don’t get shot.”

“Yes sir,” she replied as she slipped a comm piece in her pants pocket and grabbed her jacket before getting out of the van.

Darcy walked to the mouth of the alleyway, took a deep breath, slipped her earpiece in, and spoke quietly. “Barton, am I clear?”

“Clear on my mark for thirty seconds. And.... Mark.” 

She removed the ear piece as she stepped from the alley to the street, making it look like she was adjusting her hair. She walked down the sidewalk briskly, trying to not let the weight of the gun at her ankle throw off her stride while she tried to convince herself that her heart wasn’t going to hammer its way out of her chest.

At the door of the bar she took another steadying breath before pushing her way in with an extra sway to her hips. In the dimmer light of the bar she saw Caleb, carefully positioned at a corner of the bar, giving him the best view of the door; and the slightly secluded booth where Natasha sat in her platinum blonde wig, drinking with several men.

Darcy watched Caleb scan the room, eyes passing over her briefly, only to jerk his head back around when he recognized her, as she hurried across the room. 

“Sweetie, I am _so_ sorry I’m late. You know how Jane can be.” Before he could formulate an articulate reply, she embraced him, pressed a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth, and whispered, “Play along.” She could feel several people in the sparsely-filled bar watching her intently as she sat on a stool beside Caleb, gesturing for the bartender. 

“ID kid?” demanded the bartender, a heavy-set man with dark hair and a swarthy complexion.

She giggled as she got her wallet out. “There you go, legal and everything,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder as the bartender scrutinized her Ohio drivers license.

“What’ll it be?” he said, passing it back.

“Amaretto sour please.” She pulled a ten dollar bill out of her wallet, dropping it on the bar before turning back to Caleb, who still looked startled. “I know we said we’d meet at six-thirty, but Jane needed me to finish that data entry. You aren’t mad are you?” and she pushed out her lower lip slightly and gave him her very best doe-eyed look.

He blinked at her owlishly until she nudged him in the shin with her foot. “No! No! Not mad. Surprised. Um. Surprised you got here at all with Jane being so tense about that project.” 

She smiled sunnily. “There’s a new place near my apartment I’ve been dying to try. Clint promised me it’s the best Korean short ribs around.”

He took a sip of his beer and looked at her sideways. “I was kind of in the mood for Italian.” He seemed on the verge of saying something else when the bartender came back by to serve Darcy her drink. He waited until the bartender left and leaned forward. He placed his hand on her thigh, and spoke very softly. “What the hell is going on Darce?”

She darted her gaze around the room and leaned forward, giving the illusion of an intimate conversation between lovers, before answering. “We need to go. It isn’t safe.”

“No, it isn’t,” he confirmed. “You need to go.”

“No, _we_ need to go,” she retorted, stressing the ‘we’ part of the equation. Darcy bit her lip in frustration when Caleb shook his head minutely, his gaze fixed over her shoulder at the booth where Natasha sat. “Please? It’s important,” she pleaded quietly.

His eyes flicked back to her and he shook his head again, drawing back slightly.

Darcy plastered a fake smile on her face to mask her frustration and took a small sip of her drink. Making a scene might work, but she didn’t want to increase their risk by drawing more attention by making the wrong sort of scene. It came down to what _kind_ of scene she needed to create; preferably one that the other patrons would watch from afar, but wouldn’t want to get involved in.

She didn’t think she could fake being drunk since she’d only just gotten there and the drink she’d been served was fairly well watered. A lovers quarrel would draw _too_ much attention and increase the chances of someone coming to intervene.

With a moments more thought she made up her mind to fabricate a family emergency. She stuck her hand in her purse for her phone and spoke, trying to cover the slightly awkward silence that had fallen between them. “So, Italian or Korean? I mean we can do Italian tonight and save Korean for the weekend. I’m not too picky, but I really hope the Italian place is better than that hole in the wall place in Virginia we went to.”

“Why don’t you...” Caleb began to say, when shouting at the table behind Darcy broke out. Caleb’s eyes went wide. He grabbed Darcy by the arm, tugged her off her stool, and pulled her behind him. She spun around to look at the booth where Natasha and her ‘bodyguard’ had been sitting. Natasha’s hands were in the air at shoulder height, palms out. The other agent was in a choke hold and turning an unfortunate shade of red.

Darcy watched in horror as one of the gun runners reached out and yanked Natasha’s blonde wig off, spilling disheveled red curls in her face, sparking a new round of shouting that Darcy got barely one word in four of. She did clearly hear, “Avengers”, “spy”, and “SHIELD”. Caleb’s hand tightened on her arm when Darcy muttered under her breath, “Oh shitballs. Not good.”

Looking frantically around the room, she saw several patrons scramble for the door, while another group of men, near where Natasha was being held at gunpoint, pulled weapons from hidden holsters and jacket pockets.

She slipped her hand into her pants pocket, thinking that if she could at least get her earpiece in, she could take direction from Sitwell. Her fingers had just brushed the hard plastic when the bartender stepped forward, a large pistol in his hands. 

“Hands where I can see them. Now.” 

Shaking, she raised her hands. Caleb mirrored her, casting another look at the tableau of SHIELD agents and gun runners.

Darcy fixed her attention on the more immediate threat of the bartender and hoped that Sitwell was scrambling the strike team. A sudden scuffle broke out at the far table. She turned back in time to see Natasha dive across the room as the gun runners opened fire. 

Darcy threw herself to the floor. Caleb stumbled and fell beside her with a surprised whuff of air escaping as he hit the ground. The bartender opened fire at the far table. 

Darcy lay paralyzed with fear. Natasha was nowhere to be seen, and her backup was crumpled on the floor in a growing puddle of blood. Darcy reached a hand for Caleb and tugged on his jacket sleeve. She was closer to the corner of the bar, and thought if they moved quickly, they might be able to get around the corner and to better cover. 

He moaned. She picked her head up, and her eyes widened in horror at the growing red stain on the front of his pale blue shirt. 

As the chaos on the other side of the room spread, Darcy saw one of the gun runners go down with an arrow through his throat. She sat up, grabbed the shoulders of Caleb’s jacket and hauled him into the lee of the bar. She tried to block out his pained cries as she moved him and hoped she wasn’t making anything worse. 

In the relative safety behind the edge of the bar she pulled the mouse gun free of her pant leg and put it on the ground beside Caleb’s head. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled, ripping his shirt open. On his left side, a hand-span from the center of his chest blood flowed freely from the entry wound. Apologizing, she rolled him slightly to his right to check for an exit wound. She didn’t see one, and couldn’t remember from her field medicine class if that was a good or bad sign. She did remember that the best thing she could do to improve his chances was to put pressure on the wound. She yanked her jacked off and pressed it down, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood. Like a mantra she began chanting, “Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me.” She could feel her heart pounding and flinched every time she heard a gun go off.

His eyes fluttered open. “What happened?” he wheezed.

“Don’t talk.” she urged. “Just stay with me. Don’t die. We’ll get out of this. Don’t you dare die.”

“Hurts,” he mumbled.

“I know honey, but you’ve got to stay with me.” she cried. The beginnings of tears made her eyes sting. “I tried to warn you. Damn you for being so stubborn. But you have to stay here Caleb, don’t you dare close your eyes.”

“Wha - what’re you doin’ here?” he asked, struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Working an op and trying to keep your dumb ass from getting hurt.” She laughed a little hysterically. “I guess I fucked that up.”

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and abandoned her improvised compress to snatch up her pistol. A remote portion of her mind was shocked at how steady her hands and aim were. Clint came around the corner, crouched and low, and immediately put his hands up when he saw her pointing her gun at him.

“Whoa! Darce, put it down!” A split second later he saw Caleb. “Oh fuck! Sitwell, we need medical! Now!”

She set her pistol down and resumed pressure on the compress; ignoring Clint as he yelled directions in to his comm. Caleb tried to speak again, but she shushed him. 

“Don’t talk just stay here.”

Darcy never identified the impulse that had her reach for her pistol again, and aim up. Right at the bartender, who leaned over the bar and brought his own gun to bear. Clint was still turning to face the threat when she squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession, taking the bartender square in his center of mass, just the way she’d been taught. He fell with a shocked ‘O’ on his face that would give her nightmares for weeks.

She dropped the pistol with a clatter and pressed her bloody hands against her jacket on Caleb’s chest.

Caleb lost consciousness as the strike team stormed the building. Clint pulled Darcy to the side as the medical team surrounded Caleb. Someone from far away kept saying “Nononononono...” It took Darcy several seconds to realize it was her.

She watched, numb, as the medical team put the limp form of her friend and former lover on a gurney and rushed him out.

Sitwell stalked in, his face drawn and harried. “What the hell happened?” he demanded, glaring at Clint.

Natasha limped up, a bruise already blooming across the left side of her face. “I got made. Somehow they recognized me from footage from the invasion. Lewis was trying to get the Fed clear when things went fubar.”

Darcy blinked in surprise when Sitwell began an impressively profane rant in Spanish. Her Spanish was a little rusty, but she was fairly sure that the gun runners probably weren’t motherless goat-sucking whores - who fucked their own sisters. She glanced around the bar and privately thought that Sitwell was being too mild.

“Where are they taking Caleb?” she rasped.

Sitwell gave her a sympathetic look. “They’re taking him to SHIELD medical. It’s fastest. We’ll notify the FBI that we’ve got one of theirs for gunshot trauma. If he pulls through we’ll do a release to a major hospital in a few days.” 

She nodded and looked down at her blood smeared shirt and hands. In a small, tremulous voice, she asked. “Can I take a shower please?”

He opened his mouth as though to say something and then changed his mind. “I’ll have someone take you to housing as soon as possible.”

She waited for what felt like an eternity but was, on examination of the clock, less than twenty minutes. Clint came to get her. 

“Come on, let’s get out of here. Sitwell called medical. They have your friend and he’s in surgery. They say he’ll be there for a while. Let’s get you cleaned up and over to medical to wait.”

She staggered out of the bar after the archer, and was shocked to find the last lingering hints of dusk. Clint carefully steered her into one of the many black SUV’s on the street and let her stare blankly out a window as they made their way to the housing block near HQ. 

At her door she realized her purse with her keys was still hanging on the back of the bar stool she’d been sitting on. Clint gave her a smug smile and picked the lock, promising that he’d have Natasha or Sitwell bring her purse back. 

She thanked him absently before bolting to the bathroom and locking the door. She’d barely finished pulling off her boots when a wave of nausea hit her. She crashed to her knees in front of the toilet before heaving up what felt like every meal she’d eaten in the past week. She struggled to her feet, rinsed her mouth at the sink, and started the shower. Without bothering to take off her clothes she got under the spray, and began to shake. Her legs gave out and she sat in the tub, head pressed against her knees as she tried not to sob, watching blood stained water swirl down the drain.

Clint thumped against the bathroom door. “Darce, you have thirty seconds to open the door or I’m picking the lock.”

She tried to yell at him, to tell him to go away, but the words got stuck in her throat. As threatened he picked the lock and let himself in. 

“Oh kiddo...” he sighed when he saw her sitting in the bottom of the tub, fully clothed and shaking. He sighed again, and began taking off his boots, tactical vest, and pants. He kept up a constant stream of idle chatter as he got in the shower behind her, still wearing his shirt and boxers, and carefully stripped her out of her soaked and bloody clothing. Once he got her down to bra and panties, he reached for the shampoo and gently washed her hair. “Okay, I don’t know what to do after shampoo here Darce. You need to help a clueless dude out.”

“Just give me the conditioner.” she finally said, turning to face him.

“You got it from here?” he asked, concern writ clearly across his face.

Darcy released a shuddering breath. “Yeah, I think so. I just couldn’t stop freaking out.”

Clint stepped out of the shower, and reached for a towel. “It happens after combat sometimes, especially after the first time.” 

Smoothing conditioner in her hair she replied. “But I didn’t freak out like this in New Mexico.”

“You also weren’t watching a friend bleed.” He held a hand up to forestall her inevitable comment about watching Thor almost die. “You liked Thor plenty when the Destroyer came, but he wasn’t a friend or someone you used to sleep with. That changes the landscape.”

She lapsed back into silence as she rinsed her hair.

Clint picked up his clothes. “Have you got a dry shirt I can borrow?”

“In my dresser. Help yourself.” She waited until Clint left the bathroom before stripping out of her underwear and bra, leaving them in a sodden heap in the shower with the rest of her clothes. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to wear any of it ever again. She stood under the spray a few minutes more before shutting off the water.

Wrapped in a towel, she made her way to her room and dressed quickly in the jeans and t-shirt from the previous day, deeming them to be ‘clean enough’, before shoving her laptop and StarkPad in a messenger bag.

In her tiny living room, Clint waited on the couch, wet hair sticking up at odd angles. “Ready?” he asked as he stood. Darcy shrugged, not trusting her voice, but gave a jerky nod of her head and followed him from her apartment.

“You’ve really got to get out of temporary housing Darce. I mean it’s just sad. I don’t even care about decorating and I can’t stand to live here more than a week. It’s too damn depressing.” 

She let him natter and found it oddly comforting as she followed him back to the SUV. At SHIELD’s medical facility. Darcy let Clint make the necessary incantations at the admitting desk to get them to the emergency waiting room. 

“I’ve got to go and debrief,” he said. “I’ll check in on you when I can. You going to be okay?”

Darcy glared at him half-heartedly. “I’m so far from okay I think it’s in another galaxy Clint, but I’ll cope.” 

He gave her a worried look and a quick hug around the shoulders before he left.

Darcy slouched down in a surprisingly comfortable chair and took her StarkPad out of her bag and began to read Phil’s public record files. She’d just finished reading his juvenile arrest record, secretly delighted that Phil had been a car stealing delinquent, when a surgeon came out to the waiting area. 

“Agent Lewis?”

She struggled to sit up and said, “Yes? How’s Caleb?

The doctor frowned. “It was touch and go for a bit there. Mister Nguyen lost a lot of blood and he coded once. The bullet perforated his spleen, which thankfully he can do without. We’ve removed the damaged organ, patched him up, and given him as much blood as we can. He’ll be in critical condition for a while more, but I’m cautiously optimistic.”

Darcy slumped in her seat, dizzy with relief. “Oh thank god. When can I see him?”

The surgeon gave her a pitying look. “You can take a quick peek at him now, but we don’t expect him to regain consciousness until tomorrow at the earliest.” He gestured for her to follow and she hurried to her feet and trotted after him.

“He’s through here Agent Lewis. Please keep it short.” The doctor escorted her as far as the door and left.

Darcy slipped through the door and bit her lip. Caleb lay still on the hospital bed, covered in tubes and wires. A machine near his head beeped periodically. Hesitantly she stroked the back of his hand. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I was trying to keep you safe and you got shot trying to protect me. I’m so sorry.”

She held his hand a moment more before she kissed his forehead and let herself out of the room.

In a daze, Darcy made her way from medical back to temporary housing. Thankfully, Clint hadn’t locked the door when they left. She stumbled to her room, dropped her bag on the floor, and collapsed on the bed. 

She’d begun drifting off when her StarkPad paged her. She shoved her head under her pillow and ignored it. It paged her again, and refused to stop. Cursing under her breath she fumbled for the tablet and logged on. 

There was a message in her inbox flagged ‘urgent’ from Jarvis. “Agent Lewis,” began the message, “After exhaustive searches at municipal, state, and federal levels I must report that no certificate of death has been filed for Philip Jacob Coulson. Nor has his will been presented to the executors of his estate for distribution to his heirs. Complete military records have been uploaded to your tablet for your review.”

Darcy re-read the message three times before falling back on her bed, her thoughts racing. “Phil. What the actual fuck is going on?!”


	10. Aftermath (Doesn't always add up)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the Harlem shoot out Darcy gets advice from Natasha, is debriefed by Sitwell, visits Caleb, and goes to speak with Jarvis about his discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is better because of the wonderful beta work of [thisisevenharderthannamingablog](http://thisisevenharderthannamingablog.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I may owe her my first-born. Assuming of course I ever have children. Or that she would ever want mine.
> 
> All remaining mistakes are my own.

Darcy slept restlessly, jerking awake at the least little thing; the ice maker in the fridge, the sound of the air conditioning, and sometimes nothing at all. Her dreams were hazy, and everything in them seemed to be dripping crimson.

By six she gave up sleep up as a lost cause and resigned herself to a day powered by coffee and sugar. She started the coffee pot and was watching the dark brown liquid drip from the filter to the carafe when there was a knock at her door. She cast a mournful look at the half full pot before she answered it. 

Natasha held out a paper bag and a tray with two cups of coffee and said, “You look like hell. ” 

“I feel like I hardly slept.” Darcy stood aside and invited Natasha in. 

Natasha slipped past Darcy and set down the bag and tray; hung over her shoulder were Darcy’s purse and holster. Natasha slid the bag and holster off her shoulder and presented them to Darcy. “Sitwell asked me to bring these by and told me to tell you your friend is still in critical condition; but they’re expecting to upgrade him to stable soon. He also said you had debrief at ten.”

“I kept waking up and thinking of what I should have done differently.” Darcy said accepting her purse and holster. She set them on the coffee table.

Natasha handed her one of the tall cups of coffee. “Hazelnut latte, extra shot.” 

Darcy accepted the cup. That Natasha knew her default coffee order only added to the list of things that Darcy found secretly terrifying about the other woman. 

“I don’t think you could have done anything differently.” Natasha made herself at home on the small sofa. “What went wrong had nothing to do with you. I was a danger to the operation. They recognized me.”

Darcy took a sip of latte, scalding the tip of her tongue. “But they knew about SHIELD, too. I heard them before they started shooting. How did they know that?”

“Good question. One we’ll be researching thoroughly.” Changing the topic Natasha said, “You shot the bartender. What made you look up?”

Darcy grimaced. She had hoped to put off thinking about the man she’d killed. “I don’t know. I must have seen something and just reacted...” She grimaced again. “When do I stop feeling nauseous about shooting someone?”

Expression unreadable, Natasha said, “I don’t know.” She held up a hand to prevent Darcy from interrupting. “No, I actually do not know. I was trained from an early age to be what I am. I was ten the first time I killed someone. At least I think I was ten.” Natasha shrugged. “All I remember is being _proud_ because I’d carried out my mission.” She quirked a delicate red brow at Darcy. “Does that horrify you? It usually horrifies people when I tell them that.”

“I...” began Darcy, before she shook her head. “No, I’m not horrified. I’m sad. And furious. I was still playing with dolls and planning sleepovers when I was ten. How could someone do that to a _child_?!” 

“When I find out I’ll be sure to let you know. Right after I wipe every last one of those sons of bitches off the planet,” answered Natasha.

Darcy took another, more careful, sip of her coffee. “I can get behind that.”

They sat in companionable silence, sipping coffee, and letting their thoughts wander. Natasha eventually spoke. “There’s an apple pastry in the bag. Clint said you liked them.”

“Thank you. Do you know when I can see Caleb again?”

“You should go before your meeting with Sitwell. Debriefs usually take a while.” Natasha stood and went to the door. “A word of advice. Write down everything you can remember now. It’ll help.” Her hand on the knob, Natasha turned back to Darcy. “You will question everything you did. You will wonder what you could have done differently. It’s to be expected. But my recommendation after yesterday is to approve you for full field status with a senior agent. You did well.”

Darcy gaped after the spy, who let herself out, closing the door with a quiet ‘snick’.

Darcy gathered her thoughts, along with her coffee and pastry, and went back to her room to dress for the day. She put on her second best agent suit. Her first was still a soaking heap in the shower. She wondered if she should try to have it cleaned, or if burning it was the better option. 

In the living room she hesitated. Her holster and sidearm were sitting on the coffee table. Since being issued her weapon she’d gotten used to wearing the holster and its weight against her side. Her hand hovered over it for a moment. With a sigh she picked it up and secured it in its case. She hoped she would get over her unease at holding a gun again, her job required weapons proficiency. Sidearm secured she left her drab apartment and began the short trek back to SHIELD medical.

In medical, she sat beside Caleb’s bed and finished reading about Phil’s adolescence. It was mostly dry reading, but so far she had fairly decent picture of Phil up through his late teen years. A little geeky and solidly an A-minus to B-plus student; until his junior and senior years of high school when he suddenly became a bit of a hell raiser and was caught stealing cars for joyrides. 

He’d enrolled in college, but only completed a semester before he joined the Army at nineteen. There was no clear indication of what had propelled the young Phil Coulson to enlist. Once she ran out of early public records, she opened his military file. The first page was a picture of Phil. It appeared to have been part of his enlistment folio. Darcy covered her mouth with a hand to stifle her giggles. Nineteen year-old Phil was a little gawky and geeky looking, and the first word that came to mind when she looked at the photo was ‘adorable’; but even so he seemed to have perfected that very serious ‘no bullshit’ stare she recalled.

As she continued to read, she learned that Phil had shown a marked aptitude for combat and firearms early in his training. There was also a note in his early files that said “excellent tactical analysis and leadership skills; recommended for officer training”. He still had a bit of a rebellious streak; there was a disciplinary write-up from his CO for having been caught sneaking off base several times.

None of it accounted for Jarvis’ discovery that from a legal standpoint Phil could be considered alive because no death certificate had been filed. She had a difficult time wrapping her head around that. Darcy had learned early on that SHIELD was deeply wed to its policies and procedures. Paperwork was a way of life for everyone above a certain clearance level. It seemed impossible that someone, somewhere, had somehow forgotten to file the death certificate.

She decided she needed to speak with Jarvis, ‘in person’, again at Stark Tower. She sent him a message, asking if she could come to the tower later that day.

Jarvis replied that he would be free to speak with her anytime; he only asked that she let him know at least twenty minutes in advance so he could secure a room. 

She typed out her agreement and went back to her reading

After a moments consideration she sent Jarvis another message, asking him to confirm that death certificates had been filed for all other members of SHIELD who had lost their lives in the days surrounding the Battle of New York. 

Darcy checked the time and started. It was later than she thought. She cursed under her breath and stowed the tablet in her bag. 

“I’ll be back.” she promised Caleb, and hurried from the room to meet Sitwell.

Her debrief was harrowing. Sitwell made her recount her experience from the time she stepped out of the van to the time the strike team stormed the bar. He asked her the same questions at least three different ways; ‘Did she see anyone or anything suspicious before she entered the bar’, ‘Did she suspect the bartender was armed’, ‘Did she overhear anything from the far table before things began going wrong’, and on, and on. 

At first Darcy wanted to scream at Sitwell. To demand why he was treating her like a suspect. It wasn’t until she realized she was recalling new details each time he repeated a question that she understood what he was doing; trying to extract as much information from his agent who had been on hand for the firefight. He might have the audio from Natasha’s cunningly hidden recorder, but that wouldn’t account for everything. Until she was more fully trained in recall, he needed to grill her until she couldn’t remember any new details. She regretted not taking Natasha’s advice and writing things down before meeting with Sitwell. When they were done, Darcy had gone through most of a box of tissues and her head ached fiercely.

Sitwell shut off the recorder on his desk. “Thank you Agent Lewis. I’m sorry that was so unpleasant.”

She sniffled and waved off his apology. “I’ll live. It sucked donkey-balls, but I’ll live.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Now for one last unpleasant bit of business,” he said and handed her a stack of forms. “Please fill these out and have them back on my desk by lunch on Monday.”

Darcy sighed and accepted the stack of paper. “Haven’t you people thought of modernizing? I mean paper forms is archaic as fuck.”

“I’d point out that you are now one of ‘you people’ as you so charmingly put it. We have thought of modernizing, but sometimes paper is better. It’s harder to hack a physical filing cabinet.” Sitwell said, the corners of his mouth curving in a smile.

“Oh fine, bring security into it why don’t you?” She bit her lip. “Hey boss?”

“Yes Agent Lewis?” 

“What do we do now? We didn’t get any intel on the operation, and for all we know someone’s still shipping Chitauri tech out of the country. And Natasha - Agent Romanoff’s cover was compromised. Do we know how that happened? Do we know why they knew about SHIELD?” Darcy was surprised to see Sitwell break into a pleased smile.

“Thank you Agent Lewis,” he said, still grinning. “The Director owes me fifty bucks now.”

She scrunched her face up in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Given last night’s events, the Director bet me that after your debrief today you would either hand in your resignation or demand to be assigned back to some nice safe little hacker group and never go out in the field again. I told him you were Phil’s choice for a reason.”

Darcy glared. “How do you know you won the bet? How do you know that I’m not about to demand to be reassigned?”

“I believe your exact words were, ‘What do we do now?’ That tells me you’re still a field agent and a handler in training. Also, those were _exactly_ the right questions to ask.” He nodded, looking pleased. “We’ll be working to answer those questions as quickly as possible. We took two lower level thugs from the smuggling ring into custody. We don’t have a lot of hope that they’re going to give us any useful intel, but we might get lucky. In the meantime, we’re going to start tracking where the Chitauri weapons are showing up overseas.” He paused, his expression thoughtful. “Harrison in LA said you were good with computers. Specifically hacking and decryption.”

Darcy shrugged. “I do okay. Harrison taught me some good back doors for most of the major members of UN affiliated countries. China’s tricky, but not impossible. North Korea is actually harder, but also not impossible if I have all day. Harrison can do it faster.”

“How are you with research?”

She rolled her eyes. “Pssst. Please. I worked for Jane Foster. Half of what I did for her was research. The rest of it was data entry. Well that and reminding Jane she needed to eat and sleep like a normal human.”

Sitwell nodded. “Good. Tomorrow head over to intel and have them get you set up. I want you to verify the locations the Chitauri weapons have shown up since the Battle of New York. Find me a cluster where a lot of weaponry has shown up recently.”

“And then?”

“And then we take a trip, Agent Lewis.” He made a shooing gesture with his hands. “We’re done here. You need to go to psych for an eval, and then I want you to find Agent Romanoff for your new training schedule.”

With trepidation she asked, “New training schedule?”

“You impressed her with your quick reflexes and good thinking yesterday. She wants to revise your training plan.” 

Darcy groaned. “You don’t want me to quit, you’re just waiting for Natasha to kill me.” 

“Of course not. If you’re dead, I can’t win anymore bets.”

“There is a disturbing degree of logic to that.”

“Go on, get out of here. You have your orders for the day,” he said, dismissing her.

She hesitated at the door. “Sir?”

Sitwell sighed. “Yes Lewis?”

Darcy took a moment to collect her thoughts. “Why aren’t you pulling me off this? I shot someone yesterday. I... I guess I thought you’d have me cooling my heels for a few weeks.”

Sitwell took off his glasses, pulled a cloth from a pocket, and cleaned the lenses before putting them back on. “Honestly, I’m going on a hunch. I know I should send you to psych, because you killed a man yesterday. A man who would have killed you, your friend, and your teammate if you hadn’t shot him first. My hunch is telling me that you’re going to deal with things a lot better if you have something to do. My hunch says that the worst thing I could do for you would be to put you on inactive status and let you sit in your bland department-issued apartment and stew in your own juices.” He pinned her with a long look, seemingly to give her time to refute his statement. “If I’m wrong, I expect either you or psych will tell me. Actually, if psych says something they’ll probably scream at me.”

Darcy nodded once. “Thank you.” 

He smiled. “You’re welcome. Now get out. I need to finish my action reports.”

Darcy stepped out of Sitwell’s office and turned to walk back to medical, where she assumed she could find someone to direct her to psych.

“Darcy!” called Clint.

She turned and watched the archer jog up the hall to her.

“Hey Clint,” she said, feeling awkward. There wasn’t a good guide for how to act in front of her co-worker, who was also a good friend, who had watched her totally freak out the night before. “Um. How’s it going?”

“I’m fine. You have your debrief with Sitwell?”

“Yeah, just finished. I have to go to psych now, but I’m not sure where they are.” She rolled her eyes, exasperated with herself for not asking where to go before she left Sitwell’s office, and not willing to interrupt him to find out.

“I’ve got to go over there, too. I’ll walk you over,” Clint offered.

She gave him an odd look. “What do you have to go down there for?”

“It’s a long story,” he said as they walked down the hall. 

When he didn’t elaborate further, she frowned and filed it away. Since her arrival, she’d come to the conclusion that something awful had happened before the Battle of New York that Clint flatly didn’t want to talk to her about. On one hand, he was her friend, and she wanted to respect his privacy. On the other, she was nosy and wanted to know why her friend was hurting. Clint walked her down to psych and waved goodbye before he disappeared into one of the offices.

She put the continued mystery of ‘What the fuck is up with Clint’ aside and introduced herself to the receptionist, who informed her that the doctor would be right with her.

An hour later Darcy left psych exhausted and starving. It had been hours since the apple pastry and coffee Natasha had brought her. The therapist she was now scheduled to see once a week for the next six weeks was pleased with how well Darcy seemed to be handling events. Darcy wasn’t sure she was handling things all that well. She’d decimated another box of tissues in the therapist's office, and her headache from earlier was threatening to turn into a full blown migraine if she didn’t eat something and drink some water soon.

Darcy decided to get her lunch out instead of going to the cafeteria. It gave her a way to kill three birds with one stone; it got her out of SHIELD HQ (something she desperately needed), it got her fed, and it gave her time to go speak with Jarvis. Before she left, she let Jarvis know she would be on her way to talk to him in half an hour.

She collected her lunch order and hurried to Stark Tower. The receptionist directed her to the conference room on the thirtieth floor again. On the elevator ride up Darcy wondered if the receptionist thought it was odd she was sending someone to a meeting on a floor that was entirely vacant. 

Darcy shut the conference room door behind her and spoke immediately. “Jarvis, what the actual fuck is going on? What do you mean he hasn’t been declared dead? Does it mean he’s alive?!”

“I cannot say, Agent Lewis. I have been searching extensively for any sort of substantiating evidence since my discovery yesterday. To date none of my searches have shown anything that would conclusively indicate that Agent Coulson is still among the living.”

Darcy huffed in annoyance. “Well, not having a death certificate seems like an indication to me.”

“It is a puzzle to be sure. But I am unable to find any evidence to support the conclusion that he is alive.”

She set her lunch on the table and opened the take away box of Pad Thai. “What about my request earlier?”

“My preliminary examination of death records indicates that of the one hundred and seventeen SHIELD personnel who perished in the attack on the New Mexico base and the helicarrier combined, one hundred and sixteen death certificates have been filed with the appropriate offices of record.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry, Agent Lewis. That is all the information that is currently available to me.”

She stabbed a fork into the noodles. “What do you mean ‘all the information that is currently available’?”

There was a pause that Darcy suspected meant Jarvis was conferring with Tony back in Malibu and getting Tony’s permission to divulge information.

“During the events leading up to the Chituari invasion, Sir was able to install a remote module that I used to access the SHIELD databases and systems.”

Darcy whistled. “That’s one hell of a hack job.”

“Thank you, Agent Lewis.” Jarvis sounded proud of the accomplishment. “I retained access to the SHIELD systems for approximately four days _after_ the invasion.”

“What happened?”

“My access was terminated. I assume someone found the point where I was encroaching into the SHIELD systems and closed the port. I no longer have access to the SHIELD mainframe or databases that might shed further light into the curious case of Agent Coulson’s record of death.”

Darcy was quiet for several minutes while she ate her noodles. “I’m going to regret asking this. Can you get back in?”

The pause from Jarvis was much longer. When he spoke again there was a hesitancy to his voice. “In order to access those systems again, I would need a new remote module delivered to the helicarrier.”

Darcy frowned. “Nowhere else?”

“In theory I should be able to get in from SHIELD headquarters. But much as Sir inserted me in to the carrier systems you would need to insert me at a command station terminal.”

“Got it.” Darcy ate a few more bites of her lunch. “Hey, J-man. Have you told Tony about Phil not being legally dead?”

“Sir has been - preoccupied with other projects. He has instructed me to give you what aid you require. Until you have conclusive evidence as to Agent Coulson’s status, I am choosing to let you work unhindered,” Jarvis informed her.

Darcy considered that news and the challenge of getting Jarvis access to the SHIELD systems. “So, can you tell Tony I need a remote thingy so we can get you back into the SHIELD computers? I don’t know when I’d be able to use it, but it’d be easier if I had one to use when I needed it.”

There was a long pause before Jarvis spoke again. “Sir said that while he is all for corrupting the dominant paradigm, and junior agents of shady government agencies; he feels obliged to remind you that if you are caught you would most likely be brought up on charges of espionage and possibly treason.” 

Darcy’s eyes widened at the statement. “Well shit. Are you saying my choices are not get caught, get caught and locked away in a ten by ten cell the rest of my life, or not try to get into the databases?”

“I’m afraid those are not unreasonable assumptions of your choices, Agent Lewis.” Jarvis sounded apologetic.

“Out of three options, only one doesn’t suck. I may not be a math whiz, but it doesn’t exactly sound like those odds are ‘ever in my favor’.” She got up and began pacing. “Something isn’t right, and I feel like I owe it to Phil to find out what it is. That said, treason doesn’t look great resumes.”

“Sir has another possible solution.”

Darcy whipped her head around. “Spill it,” she demanded.

“Sir is still a consultant for SHIELD. It is probable that he will be called in at some time in the future to provide his expertise. He believes that if you leave the planting of the device to him, and leave me with a detailed set of instructions on the data you wish ferreted out, you will get the information you seek.”

“I could still be implicated.” Darcy countered.

“Only if Sir or I choose to do so.” Jarvis sounded offended. “And I assure you Agent Lewis neither of us will.”

Darcy raised her hands in surrender. “Understood, Jarvis. I have to at least ask. You’re kind of too good to be true, and every story I’ve ever read about things that were too good to be true ended very badly for someone.” She checked the time and cursed. “Shit. I need to get back to HQ. Jarvis, _when_ Tony gets you back into the SHIELD mainframe I want you to hit up the medical database. I want all of Phil’s medical records. Especially anything to do with his death. Can you do that?”

“Once I’ve established a connection with the SHIELD mainframe, that should be reasonably simple to achieve. I assume if I find anything else of interest you would like me to make note?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

She bolted out of the room and back to the elevators, Jarvis’ voice following her down the hall.

“A simple ‘yes’ would suffice, Agent Lewis.”

At headquarters, she went back to medical to check on Caleb. He was still unconscious. His hair stuck up like a hedgehogs quill’s. She smiled fondly and tried to smooth it back in place. Darcy settled in the chair beside his bed. She had meant to read more of Phil’s file, but stress and exhaustion had taken their toll, and she nodded off. 

She jerked awake some time later to the unsettling feeling of being watched. Natasha leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, her expression neutral.

Darcy glared at the other woman and surreptitiously checked to see if she’d drooled on herself. “Ugh. I know you’re a spy and all, but do you _have_ to watch me sleep? It’s creepy and Edward-like.”

Natasha pushed off the wall. “I wasn’t watching you for long.”

“Thanks. I think,” said Darcy, as dryly as she could. “Is it time to go get my ass kicked?” 

“No. Not today,” Natasha said, with a shake of her head. “As your resident taskmaster, I’ve decided you deserve a day off.” She held up a finger. “But! I want you in the gym at seven tomorrow. We’re going to start some new drills with obstacle courses.” Natasha chuckled at Darcy’s worried expression. “Don’t worry! It’ll be fun!”

“You have a very strange idea of fun.” 

Natasha grinned and sauntered out of the room with a wave. “So Clint keeps telling me.”

Darcy sat with Caleb a while longer with the hope that he would regain consciousness while she was there. When she caught herself drifting off again, she gathered her bag and left. She sent Sitwell a text message that she was taking the rest of the day off. He replied immediately to confirm she was off duty until the following morning at nine.

In her temporary apartment, she changed to her most comfortable sweats and crawled into bed with her trusty laptop. She felt like she deserved to spend the rest of the day catching up on her Netflix queue. She was asleep before the opening credits of Lost Girl finished running.


	11. Building A Mystery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy and her team begin planning the op that will shut down the group responsible for replication Chitauri weapons.
> 
> Steve returns from god knows where. 
> 
> And Darcy's office chair tries to kill her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
> 
> I'm sorry this has taken so long to get up. I had a bad case of work, life, vacation, and my writing motivation taking a painfully sharp dive after some rough personal stuff.
> 
> I am working (slowly) on Chapter 12

The months following the Harlem bar shoot out, or as Clint dubbed it ‘the Harlem shake (down)’, were hectic and intense.

Caleb regained consciousness two days after the firefight, and subsequently transferred to New York’s general hospital to finish his recovery before being released. After he was transferred Darcy went to visit him with a deck of cards and a box of chocolate. She learned he’d been dressed down, twice. First by his own command and then by Sitwell. She could tell he was excruciatingly embarrassed from the way he avoided making eye contact. He apologized, and kept apologizing. Eventually she threw a pillow at his head and made him promise if she ever told him to leave with her he’d do it, no questions. He promised with a sheepish smile, and apologized again. 

Acting on Sitwell’s instructions Darcy worked at gathering intelligence, analyzing results, and delivering reports with her conclusions. At the end of the first week she’d come to Sitwell’s office with reports of Chitauri weapons showing up in Columbia. The next day she found herself on a transport flight with Sitwell, Clint, Natasha, and a strike team.

They were leaving American airspace when Darcy commented that she hoped she’d be able to reenter the country since she didn’t have a passport. Sitwell had rolled his eyes, reached into his suit jacket, and produced a dark blue booklet. She accepted it with an answering eyeroll and tucked it away in her bag. 

“Am I ever going to stop being creeped out when you do things like that?”

Sitwell leaned back in his seat with a chuckle, folded his hands over his chest, and grinned before closing his eyes for a nap. “I hope not. It’s about the only way I have left to keep you on your toes.”

The Columbian op went by the book. They were in and out in under a week with a crate of confiscated Chitauri weaponry and a South American smuggling ring in ashes. The closest thing they had to an injury were Darcy’s bruises from her continued sparring sessions with Natasha and Clint.

“I swear, I’m never going to be able to have a boyfriend,” she had moaned, looking woefully at a vivid bruise on her arm. “And it’s not because of the hours. It’s the bruises. People will think any boyfriend I have beats me.”

Clint looked up from his weapons check with a smirk. “What do you want a boyfriend for when you have all this?” He’d gestured to the inside of the hanger they were using as their base. It was poorly lit and Darcy had refused to look too closely at any of the darker corners. As long as she couldn’t see the spiders, she could pretend they weren’t there.

“Haha, Clint. I haven’t had a date since I broke up with Caleb. That was _months_ ago! I am an attractive woman! I liked having a boyfriend.” 

Natasha strolled over, apple and small knife in hand. “If you liked having a boyfriend you’d still have your impulsive FBI boy. No, what you like is sex. You do not need a boyfriend for sex.” Informed the other woman cooly.

Darcy snorted. “My point remains. Even if I found someone I liked well enough to have sex _with_ I’d still have strange bruises to explain.”

Natasha shrugged and had left Darcy to her complaining and Clint to his mocking.

Back at HQ Darcy dove into intelligence reports, tracking rumors of Chitauri weapons and tech. Each time she had a cluster that pointed to a pattern she’d bring her findings to Sitwell. More often than not her findings were followed by an early morning scramble to a transport and a five to seven day field op to recover weapons. A few ops went a little pear shaped, but nothing so bad as the Harlem bar. Darcy was able to stay out of the line of fire, something she was just fine with.

Between missions Darcy finished reading Phil’s military history. He’d joined the Rangers when he was 25 and lead a highly decorated reconnaissance team. His file was full of commendations. To her surprise there were also several disciplinary hearings related to insubordination. She read the incident write ups and came to the conclusion that Phil had no patience for being ordered to execute stupid decisions that needlessly put his men or civilians in harm's way. After eight years as a Ranger he’d mustered out and joined SHIELD. There were no notes to suggest why he’d made the change. It was reminiscent of his apparently sudden decision to join the Army.

Which is where the trail went cold. She’d checked with Jarvis several times to see if he had any new information for her, or if Tony had managed to get Jarvis back into the SHIELD mainframe. Each time she spoke with the AI he was apologetic. Tony hadn’t been called in for a consult that required him to go to the carrier or come to HQ. Despite Jarvis’ warnings about the consequences of being caught she was starting to consider that the risk might be worth the reward.

By the middle of July Darcy found a small studio walk up in a older, but clean, building that was only a thirty minute subway ride from HQ. It was similar to her college dorm in size, but she didn’t have to share with anyone and she had a bathroom to herself. With her first bonus check for field work she splurged and bought a sinfully comfortable queen sized bed that took up a large part of her living space. She didn’t care too much. It could double as a couch in a pinch and the only person who ever came over was Clint. They’d watch over the top action movies and dissect how many laws of physics the action scenes broke.

In late October as she was entering the main lobby at HQ she was surprised to see Steve waiting for an elevator. She smiled and waved as she made her way across the lobby. He’d did a double take. She thought about being offended but supposed it was fair since she continued to play fast and loose with the dress code. Her slacks and boots were dress code compliant. Her bright blue blouse was a little less so. The knit hat from her Nana jammed over her hair and ears clashed with pretty much everything. 

“Hey Steve-o! Welcome back! How was California?”

He continued to stare at her. 

“What? Do I have pen on my face again?” She began rooting in her bag for a compact.

“Oh, no! I’m sorry! I was just surprised to see you Miss - um Agent Lewis.” stuttered Steve.

She smiled warmly. “No worries. I was just worried I’d managed to get something on my face. Or something from the lab had escaped and I was about to get eaten by a sentient mould culture.” An elevator opened and she followed Steve through the doors. Steve hit the button for the eighteenth floor before she could.

He shot her a concerned look. “Does that happen around here often?”

“No, not much. But we did have a section wide evacuation last week.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, one of the new baby mad scientists down in biology dropped a tray of petri dishes or something. Mass panic ensued before anyone could verify it was a tray of _clean_ specimen containers.” The corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk. “But at least we got the last nice afternoon off. It’s been rainy and grey ever since.” 

His smile was a little lopsided and reminded Darcy more of a smirk when he said, “Sounds like it was staged.”

“Shhhhhh! Don’t spread it around.” She cautioned with a conspiratorial look. “So, you didn’t say, how was California? Was it all you hoped it would be?”

“It was less about going to California and more about taking a break. I wanted to get out in the world for a bit. See what’s changed. See what’s stayed the same.” He gave her one of his disarmingly sweet smiles.

She quashed the impulse to ask him out for coffee, or his hand in marriage. “So, in your esteemed opinion, what’s changed the most?” 

Steve shoved his hands in his pockets while considered the question. “What people think is important.”

She cocked her head, inquisitively. “What do you mean?”

“People used to actually _talk_ to each other. Now all everyone ever does is fiddle with their cell phones that Tony swears are more powerful than the ones that sent people into space.” He smiled wryly. “And this is the point where Tony swears I’m about to start telling people to get off my lawn.”

“Nah, I get what you’re saying. I mean, I’m part of the internet generation. I was practically born knowing how to use a computer. We’re distractible and it’s made a lot of us really shallow. We’re used to having the evening news before lunchtime. We’re impatient and impulsive and it shows.” She bumped her shoulder into his arm. “But hey, at least tell me you’ve watched the archival footage of man walking on the moon.”

He grinned like a little kid at Christmas. “That was amazing.” 

The elevator arrived at their floor and Darcy continued to chat as they walked. “Have you seen Apollo Thirteen? It was a good movie about the space program. Nana said they got the ‘flavor of the seventies’ right, whatever that means. If you’ve ever heard someone say ‘Houston, we have a problem’ it’s from that. The actual mission I mean, not the movie. Though they use that line in the movie too.” 

“I’ll check it out.” He smiled again and Darcy tried to ignore what felt like an invasion of butterflies where her stomach should be.

“So what’re you doing here? I figured you just hang out on standby for the next alien uprising or something when you aren’t out touring the country.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck absently. “While I was out riding around I thought about what I wanted to do. Before I left the Director said I could do a lot of good if I wanted. That SHIELD could use me on a small tactical team. I told him I needed sometime to think about it. So I thought. And now I’m back.”

“I bet they’re going to team you up with the wonder twins.” said Darcy with a decisive nod.

“The who?” Steve shot her a skeptical glance.

“Clint and Natasha. I mean have you _seen_ them move together? They’re in sync like all the time. It’s creepy. The only people I know who do that are either twins like my brothers or banging. Anyway, I call the deadly duo the wonder twins, because there are just somethings I don’t want to know.” She gave a mock shudder. “I especially don’t want to know if they have any special powers they can activate.” She stopped her verbal stream of consciousness when she caught Steve’s expression, a comical mix of shock and confusion. “Dude, did I totally just short out your brain?”

Before Steve could answer, Sitwell poked his head around the corner of his office door. “Agent Lewis, for the love of God please don’t break Captain Rogers. The amount of paperwork involved for breaking a national icon is staggering. I for one would like a day off sometime this month if we ever finish running all these bits of Chitauri tech down.” He stepped out of his office and extended a hand to Steve. “Good morning Captain Rogers, I see you’ve already met the research member of our little team. I’d say she won’t do it again, but I’m pretty sure I’d be lying.”

Darcy snorted. “I didn’t do anything boss.”

Sitwell swung his gaze back to Darcy. “I _saw_ that look on Captain Rogers face. And for what its worth, _no one_ knows the exact nature of the relationship between Agents Barton and Romanoff. I’m not even sure _they_ know. Excessive curiosity will only end poorly for you. Understand?”

She nodded, eyes wide. “Got it boss.”

“Good. Now go find a foreign consulate to hack. I need to brief the Captain before we have our meeting at ten.”

“May I destabilize a dictatorship regime instead?” She grinned, a glint of mischief in her eyes.

Steve looked concerned. Sitwell gave her a stern look. “Can you be done before our meeting? If you can’t then, no, you may not.”

Darcy pouted. “Geeze, boss. You take _all_ my fun away”

“Yes, that is me. Assassin of fun. I serve no other purpose but to interfere with your fun having ways.” Sitwell deadpanned at her.

“Oh fine. Have it your way.” She grinned at Steve and gave Sitwell one of her insolent salutes. “See you at ten!” She sauntered down the hall. She could hear Sitwell apologizing again as she walked away. 

“Darcy is quite good at what she does. She just has an interesting interpretation of the chain of command.”

The last thing she overheard before she turned the corner was Steve chuckling. “I got that impression. She seems like a real pistol.”

Darcy grinned. Pistol. She’d take that over any other number of things people had called her in the past.

At ten Darcy slipped into Sitwell’s office; a carry tray with four cups in one hand, a fifth coffee in the other, and a messenger bag slung over her shoulder. She set the carry tray down on the corner of Sitwell’s desk and began handing out cups, passing the first to Steve. “I wasn’t sure if you had a favorite fancy coffee order, so I just got you plain old coffee. If nothing else it’s hot and caffeinated.” He murmured his thanks as she turned and passed drinks to Sitwell, Natasha, and Clint. She pulled a tablet and stylus out of her bag before perching on the corner of the desk. “It’s a little crowded in here boss.” Meetings in Sitwell’s office had been cozy when it was four people. The addition of Steve, who seemed to fill up half again the normal amount of space, gave things a claustrophobic feel.

Darcy watched Sitwell glance around the room before he pulled a face.

“It’ll have to do. You’re in charge of reserving us a meeting room from now on.”

“Got it boss.” She scribbled a note to herself. “So, what’s the latest?” 

“The latest is that we should have enough intel to shut down these shipments of replicated Chitauri tech very soon.” 

Clint spoke up. “So we’ve confirmed someone is replicating the Chitauri weapons?”

“The first few shipments we recovered were original Chitauri tech.” Explained Sitwell. “But sometime around the third recovery we started to find that maybe only one in ten of the weapons were the real deal. The rest were well engineered knockoffs. Agent Lewis, you have the floor.”

Darcy straightened up and began passing out folders. “Steve, has Sitwell brought you up to speed so far on what’s been going on?”

“I got the condensed version. If I have questions I’ll let you know.”

“Great.” She flipped her own folder open. “When the Harlem op went to hell in a handbasket one of the questions we had was how did a bunch of local gunrunners, barely above street thug level, know about SHIELD. That’s been bugging the shit out of me for months.” Sitwell coughed and gave her a pointed look. “Excuse me. That’s been a point of concern since then. Once knockoffs of the Chitauri weapons started showing up we knew someone out there was bankrolling this project. With Justin Hammer in jail and Stark out of the weapons business it limited our options on who would have the money, materials, and skill to reverse engineer one of the Chitauri weapons. Much less begin manufacturing them.”

Clint interrupted. “I thought our Harlem goons were well connected?”

“They were.” Answered Darcy. “But not well enough connected to know about SHIELD or that Natasha was an agent. If we were FBI I could buy it, but we’re pretty far off the radar for most organizations like the Harlem group. Which lead me to believe that they were being used as a cover for another group. The most recent mission in Tunisia, land of ‘oh dear god why don’t we have air conditioning in this van?’, gave us the break we were looking for.”

Steve had flipped ahead in his folder. “Hydra?!” His voice was strained.

“Yeah, Hydra. They’ve been dormant for the past twenty years or so, but seem to be intent on living up to their namesake again.”

Steve clenched his fists. “What do they want?”

“What most megalomanic terrorist organizations bent on world domination want. The utter submission of those they view as lowly and inferior.” Darcy said. “But that’s not what they’re working on right now. Right now they’re trying to raise capital and they’re doing it by entering the arms market with new, high powered, weapons based off of Chitauri tech scavenged after the Battle of New York. There’s a whole different team working on investigating Hydra’s long range plan. Our goal is to shut down their weapons manufacturing. World domination costs money. If we cut off their cash flow it’ll give our other teams more time to infiltrate their command structure and get better intelligence.”

Natasha spoke. “How was Hydra able to resurrect themselves this time?”

Darcy turned to Sitwell. “Boss, you want this?”

He straightened his glasses. “The short answer is: we don’t know. The long answer is: we’re still looking into it. There’s a lot of finger pointing going on right now over how Hydra was able to revive itself with so little fan fare. It’s been months since we started tracking Chitauri weapons showing up for sale on the black market. But we’ve only just caught wind of Hydra being connected in the past week.”

Steve frowned. “We won World War Two. How is Hydra still causing trouble?”

Darcy pulled a face. “When has losing a war ever stopped a zealot? There are still people who tattoo swastika’s on their bodies and believe that Jews should be eradicated. Winning a war doesn’t mean there aren’t crackpots who sympathize with the losing side. It just forces them underground, which is probably how they survived as an organization.” She turned the page. “Page eight please? I sent Doctor Banner the energy readings we’ve gotten on these weapons. Both the original Chitauri tech and the replicas. He’s been running things through simulations and expects to have a way for us to scan for the manufacturing facility in a day or so. Once we have a target we, for values of ‘we’ here that mean not me, go in and shut these yahoos down. Any questions?”

“Do we think there’s more than one manufacturing facility?” Clint asked.

Darcy shook her head. “It’s unlikely. There’s some crazy high-tech materials and rare elements they need for these weapons. Analysis of what we’ve recovered suggests a single point of origin.”

Steve stared at her, his expression intent. “How large of a manufacturing operation are we talking here.”

“We don’t know for certain.” Darcy flipped to another page in her folder. “Initial estimates based on the number of weapons we’ve recovered, suggest an operation with an output of between forty to fifty weapons a week. Once the doc has his scanner up and running we should have a better idea based on the energy output.”

Steve crossed his arms with a frown. “Fifty or sixty weapons a week? That doesn’t seem like the kind of output they’d need to raise money.” His tone conveyed a deep skepticism in Darcy’s analysis of the information at hand.

She bit back the sharp words that threatened to spill out. To demand to know if he had a strong enough grounding in current socio-economic factors and global conflict to really grasp how dangerous the Chitauri weapons were. Instead she smiled, a bit stiffly, and replied. “I realize it doesn’t sound like a lot Captain, but the records we’ve recovered show buyers are paying between twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars per weapon. On the low end that’s a million dollars a week into Hydra accounts. On the high end we’re talking one point five million a week. Of course we don’t know what kind of materials overhead they’re dealing with. We’re assuming though that labor costs are pretty low.” She tried not to be too gratified at Steve’s startled expression when she began quoting numbers.

Natasha asked the next question. “Why low labor overhead?”

Darcy flipped through her packet until she reached the page she wanted. “We’re basing the assumption off of the Hydra weapons facilities of the past. They either kidnapped slave labor; unlikely in this case because of the delicate work required. Or they recruit the necessary manpower from within using their own agents. They’ve been using the same operational model since the forties, we don’t have any reason to believe they’ve changed it.”

Clint and Natasha both nodded. Steve more grudgingly inclined his head in agreement. 

Sitwell braced his hands on his desk and leaned forward. “We should have a target within the next thirty-six hours. I want all of you on stand by. As soon as we have a location we’ll get in the air. Once we’re in the air Lewis I want you working with Captain Rogers. Satellite of the area, maps, the works. Captain, I’ll want your tactical review of the situation, a plan, and at least two back-up plans for getting in and getting it shut down.”

Steve closed his folder and tapped it against his thigh. “Are we trying to recover the weapons or just destroy them?”

“We’d like to document their manufacturing methods, if possible. But otherwise we’ve recovered enough samples to be able to blow the whole thing if it comes to it.” Sitwell said.

“Fine, who’s the field team?” Steve flicked a glance toward Darcy.

“You, Specialists Barton and Romanoff, and a ten man strike force. Agent Lewis will hang back at an established rendezvous point and man the comm with me.”

“I’ll woman the comm, thank you very much. I am too much awesome to ever be a dude,” declared Darcy, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Clint laughed. Natasha smirked. Steve just stared at her.

Sitwell rolled his eyes. “You’ll monitor the comm in a gender neutral manner and relay tactical data as needed.”

“Feh. You’re still killing my fun boss.”

“Your complaint has been noted, Agent Lewis. Unless there are any further questions, please get the hell out of my office. Unless you want to be here for my call to the director.” 

Darcy hopped off the desk and lead the rapid exodus from Sitwell’s office. She spared a glance for Clint and Natasha. They had hung back to talk with Steve. Simmering with annoyance at Steve for questioning her Darcy ducked around the corner and went to her desk in the open bank of cubicles where most of the junior agents were stationed. 

She slipped her headphones on and began to work on a project connected to the upcoming mission; identifying the most recent weapons buyers. Darcy had tuned out the chatter from the adjacent cubicle, and was concentrating on tracking a transaction through several different banks and countries when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, she turned quickly in her chair. Her chair which abruptly ceased to have a back. Darcy’s curse at having been snuck up on transformed into a yell of distress. Her arms pinwheeled as she tried to retain her precarious perch. Momentum and physics conspired against her and the chair over balanced, pitching her sideways to the floor. Or it would have if a pair of strong arms hadn’t caught her.

Darcy blinked in confusion, her glasses askew, and her cheek pressed against a warm, broad, chest. One solid arm was wrapped protectively around her back, a firm hand at her hip, the other was cradling her legs.

“Are you okay?” 

She looked up to see Steve staring down at her. She could feel her cheeks flame with embarrassment at the same time she took detailed note of exactly how blue his eyes were.

“You caught me.” She winced at the obviousness of the statement.

He carefully set her feet down. With his arm still around her back he helped her stand. When she wobbled a moment, he reached to steady her with a hand on her elbow.

“I’m sorry if I scared you.” His expression was sincere and contrite. Darcy refused to consider that his hand was still on her elbow, that her heart was still racing like she had sprinted a hundred yard dash, and that Steve was much closer than he’d ever been before, she caught a hit of his aftershave, something woody and a little spicy.

She gave him a little lopsided smile. “I think the structural failure of my chair was more of a problem.” She looked around and caught nearly every junior agent in line of sight staring intently at them. Darcy willed herself to take a small step back from him, breaking their tenuous contact, and turned a glare to the room. “Don’t you all have something _better_ to do with your time than stare?” she demanded. She was gratified to see the gawkers scramble back to their tasks. “Sorry about that,” she said. “I think that’s the most excitement any of them have seen all week.”

Steve chuckled. It was a friendly, warm sound. “You seem to have a way with them.”

“Honestly, I think they’re afraid of me because I train with Natasha.” She shrugged. “Anyway, Captain, how can I help you?”

“I wanted to apologize.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched forward. 

The statement caught her flat footed. Darcy stared at him and adjusted her glasses. “For?”

Steve looked embarrassed. “For treating you like you didn’t know what you were talking about in the briefing. It was rude and uncalled for. I knew you were Sitwell’s assistant, but I didn’t know what that meant. I assumed some things. They were the wrong things.”

Darcy pressed her lips together as she tried to control the smile she felt quirking around the corners of her mouth. “Natasha did that scary thing where it feels like she’s yelling at you but her voice stays perfectly even and polite didn’t she?”

“If I say yes will you think less of me?” His mouth turned up at the corner in a wry smile.

Darcy let her laughter bubble up. “Tell you what, if you buy me lunch I won’t think less of you.”

He grinned. “But will you forgive me?”

“Forgiveness will cost you mister. I am not just some girl who’ll be a pushover for a pretty face and your big blue eyes.” She slapped a hand over her mouth.

Steve threw his head back and laughed. “So, what’s the going rate on forgiveness if I can’t use my looks?”

Darcy blushed, mortified. “I think we can call it a wash since you saved me from an ignoble end by chair collapse.”

“Fair enough. Can I still buy you lunch?”

Darcy looked at the wreckage of her chair before she checked the time. “Let me send facilities an email so I’ll have a new chair when I get back. After that, I’m all yours.” 

Steve blushed while Darcy bit the inside of her cheek, trying to control her own wayward blushes. 

It was strange though. Not being attracted to Steve, that wasn’t strange. He was practically the walking pinnacle of human male perfection. Darcy was certain he couldn’t order a cup of coffee without the barista writing their phone number on the paper cup. What was strange was how just talking to him and laughing with him made her feel giddy. 

She firmly told herself to get a grip as she gathered her purse. “Lead the way to lunch. I’m not too picky, but I vote for avoiding the sandwich shop down at the corner. I think Clint got food poisoning there last week.” 

“Why don’t you pick?” Steve suggested.

Darcy’s phone chimed while they waited for the elevator. She glanced at the screen. The message was from Clint. **Just remember - if you despoil Captain America you have to explain it to Fury.**

She shoved her phone in her pocket with a huff of annoyance. 

Steve arched an eyebrow. “Everything alright?”

“Oh sure. Clint’s just a jerkface.”

“I thought you two were close...” He trailed off.

“Close like friends close? Or close like knocking boots close?” she countered.

Steve’s blush returned, full force, which told Darcy all she need to know about his interpretation of her friendship with Clint.

Unable to contain her amusement Darcy doubled over, whooping with laughter. Between laughs she said, “Oh god. Oh no. Not Clint. Not _ever_ Clint. No matter HOW good he looks in a tank-top. He’s a sweetheart, but oh god is he a hot mess.” She managed to get her full bellied laughter down to the occasional giggle when she said, “Besides, he’s got a type and I’m not it.”

“‘A type’?” Steve sounded a little wary, as though he was afraid of setting off Darcy’s near hysterical laughter again.

She grinned. “Yeah, a type. You know when someone is attracted to certain things? Like a buddy who always dates blondes or girls with legs that go all the way up? Clint for instance; his type is red headed and able to kill him with a pinky finger.”

Steve sputtered. “How can you be sure?”

She darted her eyes around and leaned close to Steve to whisper. “Because I got him smashingly drunk once and he told me.” She pulled back, smirking.

“You?” Disbelief coloring his voice.

She planted her hands on her hips and struck an absurd pose.“My super secret superpower, gained from my misspent college youth, is getting other people drunk and making them tell me their secrets.”

“I’m not sure that counts as a superpower.” Was Steve’s dubious reply.

“Psst. Says you.”

They fell into an amiable argument over what did and did not count as a superpower as they walked together. Over a lunch of Chinese noodles Darcy coxed Steve in to telling her stories from his trip on his motorcycle.

“And the next thing I knew, I was stopped in the middle of the road surrounded by cows. I got off my bike and started yelling and waving to get them off the road. And nothing. Just nothing. There were too many of them and I couldn’t ride through so I tried slapping one. Next thing I know I’m being chased down the road by a herd of angry cows.”

She gave him her best ‘you have got to be kidding me’ look over the tops of her glasses. “Seriously? Captain America was terrorized by cattle in Wyoming?”

“No.” He asserted with a cocky grin. “Steve Rogers was terrorized by cattle in Wyoming. Captain America had nothing to do with that. My shield was still on the bike.”

Darcy tried to ignore the little flip her stomach kept doing when he smiled at her and just shook her head in bemusement. “Well Steve, it’s been fun, but I need to see if I have a new chair, finish a research project, and check in with Doctor Banner about our tracking device. And at some point I should call my mother and assure her I haven’t been mugged or murdered while living in New York.”

Steve flagged down their waitress and paid the bill before Darcy could get her wallet out of her bag. 

“Your mother worries?”

“She’s a mother with four sons of questionable self preservation skills and a daughter who rarely calls. I think worrying is too mild a word. I grew up in the heart of Ohio suburbia and went to college in a town they use for postcards of how picturesque Virginia is. When I told mom I was moving to New York I thought she was going to either faint or find a way to lock me in my room until I was fifty,” said Darcy.

As they left the restaurant Steve fell into step beside her. “I’ll walk you back.”

She mock glared at him. “I don’t need a minder.”

“No, but this way you can tell your mother you didn’t have to walk alone in the big scary city.” 

Darcy rolled her eyes at him but didn’t try to talk him out of walking her back to HQ. 

When they reached the front doors she said, “Have you got a phone?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Just let me see it a sec?”

He reached into a jacket pocket and presented her with a StarkPhone that looked as though he hardly ever touched it. 

Her fingers flew over the screen. “Man, you have got to get you some apps on here. Also, a password or any crazy girl can put her number in here. Okay there.” She handed the phone back. “I put my number in your contacts. Give me a call sometime. I’m sure you have a lot of movies to catch up on. I can at least help you avoid the really crappy ones.” She smiled again. “Anyway, gotta dash. See you around!”

He smiled and nodded. “I’ll do that Agent Lewis.”

She tossed him one of her jaunty salutes. “Call me Darcy, Cap.”

He smiled, slyly. “Call me Steve, Agent.”

Darcy laughed and waved at him before she trotted back in the building. 

On her way back to her desk her phone chimed twice. 

The first message was from Clint. **Your government thanks you for returning a national treasure in its original near mint condition.**

She quickly tapped out, **Fuck you :-p** in return.

The second was from Steve. **Thank you for lunch.**

Darcy spent the rest of the afternoon smiling to herself.


	12. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the calm before the coming storm Darcy and Steve have lunch, talk movies, and learn a little bit about each other now that they're going to be on the same strike team.

Darcy’s phone rang. She foundered toward consciousness and made an uncoordinated grab for it before it vibrated off the nightstand. 

“Nngh. Hello?” she greeted blearily.

“Agent, er, Darcy? I’m sorry I didn’t mean to wake you. I thought you’d be up.” Came Steve’s voice from the other end of the line.

Darcy squirmed into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes in an effort to make them focus. “Hey Steve. It’s Saturday, Sitwell said we have the day off since Doc Banner probably won’t have anything for us till tomorrow or Monday.” She ran her tongue over her teeth and cringed; fuzzy teeth. That’s what she got for late night ice cream and not brushing. “What time is it anyway?”

“Eight thirty.”

Darcy sighed. “Well there goes my dream of sleeping till ten.”

Steve started to apologize again. Darcy cut him off.

“It’s okay. Really. I’m not the friendliest person first thing in the morning. Please don’t take anything I say before coffee personally. Or seriously. Well unless I’m telling you to run for your life. Then I probably mean it.” She rambled. “Anyway, to what do I owe the singular honor and questionable pleasure of Captain America’s phone call on a Saturday morning.”

There was a long pause. Long enough that her only indication that the call hadn’t been disconnected by some vagrancy of the cellular network was the scarcely audible sound of Steve breathing.

“You said you’d been cooped up inside because the weather’s been bad. It was sunny this morning when I went for my run. I thought you might like to get lunch this afternoon and I could ask you about some other movies. I watched that one you told me about last night. It was really good.” 

Steve had spoken so fast that it took a moment for her sleep addled brain to sort through the barrage of information.

Darcy put her glasses on and said, “Are you asking me out to lunch because you want movie suggestions?”

“Yes?” Steve sounded hesitant. As though he’d convinced himself that calling was a good idea two minutes ago, but was rapidly rethinking his plan.

She stretched, something between her shoulders popped. “Sure. The corruption of the innocent is always fun. Though if I get fired because I traumatized you with twenty first century pop culture and my questionable morals I’m going to be seriously annoyed. You hear me? Annoyed.” 

“Yes ma’am. I hear you.” There was a pause. “Though I was in the Army. Not a lot of innocence left after that.”

“Don’t ruin my illusions Steve, it’s rude.” She chided.

He chuckled. “Well my mother told me I should never be rude to a lady.”

“Oh honey.” Her voice all but dripped with a fake southern belle accent. “I ain’t no lady.”

His chuckle became a full laugh. “Well you ain’t like any dame I’ve ever known.”

“Damn straight. Look, I need coffee, a bagel, and to run my laundry. Why don’t we meet at twelve thirty?” She rattled off her address. “There’s a place that serves good burgers with patio seating near my apartment. We can go there unless you’d rather something else.”

He repeated her address back. “Twelve thirty. Got it. See you then.”

“It’s a date!” She said brightly and hung up. Darcy replayed her last words before she sighed and crawled out of bed, muttering to herself. “It’s a date? Really Lewis? Did you just say that?”

She hurried through her morning chores. Being employed by a covert government agency had some good perks, and the vision plan was better than most. Regardless of perks she still had to haul her laundry down to the in building laundromat in the basement and do her wash. She was carrying up her last clean load when her phone rang again. She set the basket down, pulled her phone from her pocket, and answered it.

“Hello?” She scooped up her laundry basket one armed, braced it against her side, and resumed her trek up the stairs.

“Darcy? It’s Steve. Um. I’m a bit early.” He sounded sheepish.

“Oh shit. Are you downstairs?”

“Yeah, and there’s an old guy, with the most wrinkly looking bulldog I’ve ever seen, giving me the stink eye for standing outside your building.”

Darcy laughed and turned around to go back down the stairs to the lobby. “That’s Mister Steiner. I think the last time he smiled Nixon was in office. His dog’s a total sweetheart though. Her name’s Molly. Hang tight, I’ll be right there.”

Darcy clattered her way into the lobby and pushed the door open with her hip. She waved at Steve. “Hey Mister Steiner,” she smiled at her neighbor. “You can stop glaring at my friend. He’s not going to rob anyone.”

The old man huffed. “Well you never can tell about people anymore. Just because they _look_ nice doesn’t mean they won’t steal you blind.”

“I promise Steve is too nice to steal anything. Aren’t you Steve?”

Steve gave the older man an easy grin as he trotted up the stairs. “I promise I’m not here to take anything.”

Darcy pouted as she ushered him into the lobby. “Hey I thought you were taking me to lunch.” 

Steve blinked, at an apparent loss for words.

Darcy nudged him. “I’m kidding. Geeze. Lighten up Captain Serious. Come on. I need to go put my laundry away and then we can go eat.”

Steve followed Darcy up the six flights to her apartment. She edged the door open and said, “Excuse the mess. We were out on a field assignment week before last and this past week was a ton of OT while we tried to crack the case. I needed to wash all the things. I was about to run out of pants, in the British sense of the word if you know what I mean.” She dropped the basket of clean clothes beside the bed and began yanking open drawers.

She glanced over her shoulder to Steve standing by the door, with his hands in his pockets trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

Darcy gestured to the bed. “Have a seat.” She saw Steve hesitate as he looked at her bed, made (for a change) and heaped high with primary color throw pillows. “It’s okay. The bed’s really the only place to sit. On the plus side, I found a place I could afford and still pay my student loans. On the downside it’s the size of a postage stamp and having a real bed means I don’t have any room for other furniture. Well that’s not strictly true.” She pointed to an antique looking wooden chair. “I have that. But it’s pretty rickety and I’m afraid if you sit in it, it’ll break. And I do not want to explain how you died by crappy furniture.”

Steve looked at the suspect chair and back at the bed. With a shrug he perched on the foot of the bed. He glanced around the room, taking in Darcy’s eclectic decorating. A green piece of cloth over the kitchen window had been pressed into service as a curtain, on the wall above her bed was a print of Le Chat Noir, and around the room were several framed photos.

She caught him looking at a family photo on her dresser. “That is the irrepressible Lewis clan. Every year around Mother’s Day we get together and have a family portrait done. That’s the one from last year. You’ll notice my youngest brother is missing his eyebrows.”

Steve sat forward and closely examined the picture. As promised one of the young men was missing both eyebrows and looked faintly sunburnt. “What happened?”

“So my oldest brother is a photographer, his twin is an attorney. Nice, safe, boring careers. My two younger brothers decided to go in to fire fighting. Mostly because they spent their adolescent years blowing shit up with bottle rockets. The fact they lived to adulthood with all their fingers is surprising. Anyway. Troy wasn’t even on a job. He was trying to light the pilot light on this ancient stove in our grandmothers house. Idiot managed to blow the door off the oven and himself across the room. Set Nana’s drapes on fire too. Of course it was two days before Mother’s Day and our annual picture.”

Steve chuckled. “Is there a picture from this year?”

“Mom hasn’t sent me my copy yet. I think she’s holding it hostage so I’ll come home for Thanksgiving. Everyone had their eyebrows, but Neil, Troy’s twin, had his arm in a cast.”

Steve cocked an eyebrow. “Another stove accident?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Would you believe he fell out of a tree rescuing a cat for a little boy?” She squeezed by his knees to put some things away in the chest of drawers across from the foot of the bed. “Sorry, it’s a tight fit in here.”

Steve looked around at the small studio. “It’s not that bad. Before I enlisted I shared a place in Brooklyn smaller than this with my best friend.”

Astonished, she turned to look at him. “You’re kidding me. You _shared_ a place smaller than this with someone?! How did you not kill each other? I almost strangled my college roommate sophomore year.”

He shrugged and smiled wryly. “Well it beat a boarding house. And we could usually afford heat in the winter. Me ‘n Buck worked odd jobs to make ends meet.”

She shook her head. “I can’t imagine. “

Steve smiled. Darcy thought it was a sad and distant thing.

“We didn’t even have our own bathroom. We shared one with the three Donaldson boys across the hall.”

Her eyebrows arched up in shock. “Wait, you lived in a tiny apartment with another human AND you shared a bathroom between five guys? Jesus. No offense that sounds primitive. At least tell me you had hot water?”

“Most of the time.” Steve tilted his head. “The boiler in the building was temperamental.”

Darcy shoved a drawer closed. “And done. Come on. Lets get some lunch and I can figure out how many decades of movies you need to catch up on.”

As they left the building Darcy began quizzing Steve on the movies he’d seen and liked. His apparently conflict based friendship with Tony meant he’d been introduced to a number of classic sci-fi movies; the original three Star Wars, Close Encounters, E.T, and of all things Flight of the Navigator.Somehow though, he’d managed to miss Indiana Jones, which she thought was just criminal since it was so obviously derived from old pulp adventures.

Bruce had recommended a number of classic movies that he thought Steve would like. Mostly films from the late fifties to early sixties. She noted that Bruce had tried to direct him to the cinematically notable films that weren’t _too_ much of a stretch from movies in the forties.

At the burger joint she learned that Steve had caught most of an early James Bond marathon in the midwest when he’d had to hole up in a hotel to avoid a two day storm. He deemed them ‘ridiculous’. When Darcy pressed for details why he thought that, he began a five minute rant on how everyone held their pistols wrong, including the titular character. His affront at the bad gun work left Darcy giggling into her soda.

“The current run of Bond flicks is pretty good. A lot grittier than the old movies from the sixties.” Darcy said, gesturing with a fry. “M’s a woman too. Totally kick ass. She’s like a female Fury, without the eyepatch and the weird obsession with wearing black.”

Steve, who was in the middle of taking a drink, sputtered and had to put his glass down. “You shouldn’t say things like that when someone’s drinking.”

She rolled her eyes. “What about musicals?”

“What about ‘em?”

“Do you like them? I mean nowadays musicals aren’t the thing they were back in the forties. And if you ask, most guys will act like you’re waterboarding them if you ask them to go to a movie musical. They’ve kind of become chick flick territory.”

“Oh, well, I liked ‘em well enough. A little less so after they had me doing the song and dance show selling war bonds.” Steve conceded.

“I’ll add a few of the classics to your watch list and one or two new ones.” She watched him eat for a moment. He caught her stare and cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Not that I don’t enjoy your company Steve, but what’s the deal?”

He swallowed and gave her a curious look. “The deal?

“Yeah, the deal. I mean Bruce and Tony have been giving you plenty of movie recs. I’m sure if you asked Natasha and Clint would too. So, why make up a reason to have lunch with me and listen to me blather about my family and the merits of the remake of zombie movies?”

“Oh. Er.” Steve gave her a wry look. “We’re about to be on a team together. I like knowing who I’m working with. I know what everyone else brings to the team, but you’re a wild card.”

Darcy began to bristle at the perceived implication that she didn’t know how to do her job.

Steve put his hands up in a classic sign of surrender. “I’m not saying you aren’t capable. I’m just saying I don’t know how you work, and I don’t know what’s important to you. We’re going to have to trust each other in the field. So, I’m trying to get to know you.” He smiled. “I really did like that space movie. I thought asking you about other movies might be a good place to start.”

She stuck a couple of fries in her mouth and chewed in thoughtful silence. “That makes a surprising amount of sense.”

“I try.” Was Steve’s smug reply.

Darcy pulled a face at him. “But asking me about movies doesn’t tell you want I do for the team.”

“So, tell me what you do for the team.” He countered.

“I take all the little bits of information that I can find and try to put them together form a picture. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. I’m research and analyzation. I usually run support out of a mobile command unit, relaying intel. Sitwell calls the shots, but he’s asking for my input when he can before he does.”

“Natasha said you’ve seen action.”

She grimaced and shrugged. “I hate calling it that. I mean compared to what Natasha’s done it’s practically nothing. I did what I had to do. Afterwards I completely freaked out.”

“It doesn’t mean it wasn’t action. You can’t compare what you do to what everyone else does. I’m sure there are things you can do that others can’t.”

They were finishing their meal when the sun seemed to dim and cold gust of wind made Darcy pull her jacket close. She looked up to see clouds beginning to obscure the sun, heavy and dark with impending rain.

“I think we’re about to lose our nice weather. We’d better pay and scoot if we don’t want to get drenched.”

They had a brief disagreement over the bill when it arrived.

“You got lunch yesterday. It’s my turn.” Darcy explained as she reached for the check.

“But..”

“No, it’s cool. Level five means they pay me well enough I can afford lunch.”

“But...”

She pinned him with a level blue gaze over the top of her glasses. “If you’re going to trot out some tired excuse about how it isn’t right for the girl to pay, I’m going to sic Natasha on you.”

Steve jerked his hand back as though scalded. “Point taken.”

A few blocks from Darcy’s apartment the first fat drops of rain began to fall. They began to hurry, trying to beat the storm. With still a half block to go the sky opened up and began to pour.

Darcy tucked her arms across her breasts to support herself and began sprinting the rest of the way, cursing. Steve easily passed her and found the nominal shelter of her buildings awning before her. Muttering darkly under her breath about people with too long legs she pulled her keys out of her jacket and let them in to the lobby.

They stood for a moment facing each other, the only sound the buzzing of a failing fluorescent bulb and the dripping of their clothes.

Steve’s hair was plastered to his head, rivulets of water running down his face and Darcy’s hung in thick dripping hanks.

Darcy snorted. “We look like drowned rats.”

Chuckling Steve swiped the water from his face. “Mind if I call a cab and wait down here? I took the subway over.”

She paused, she’d been having such a nice time talking with Steve and enjoying his surprisingly dry wit that she found herself reluctant to end their visit. “You’re soaked, do you want to come up and dry off first?”

He looked down and grimaced. “Nah, I’m wet clean through. I’d need a whole change of clothes to make much of a difference.” Looking back up the corner of his mouth turned up in a rueful smile. “Somehow I don’t think you keep clothes in my size just laying around.”

Darcy glanced between them, and the rather obvious difference in size; her five foot four against his six foot and change. “I might have an old t-shirt I stole from one of my brothers that could fit, but somehow I don’t think you’ll fit in my yoga pants.” She said, shivering.

“You should head up and get changed before you get sick.” Steve pulled his phone out of his jacket. “I’ll call a cab.”

Darcy darted forward and hugged him. She could feel his back stiffen in surprise before slowly bringing his arms around for a tentative hug. As quickly as she’d hugged him she pulled back and smiled. “Thank you for getting me out of the house.”

He gave her a genuine smile. “Thank you for lunch. And talking movies with me.”

“Anytime!” She gave him another impulsive hug and began her squishy slog up to her apartment. She glanced back over her shoulder to see Steve watching her. She waved and tried to ignore the little flip her stomach seemed to do when he smiled and waved back.

In her apartment she stripped out of her wet things, dropping them in a heap in her tub. She made an executive decision that the remainder of her day off should be spent wearing her warmest sweats and catching up on her Netflix queue. 

An hour later, as she settled down with a fresh bowl of popcorn her phone chimed. She picked it up and was surprised to see a message from Steve. **Well at least this new Bond knows how to hold a pistol. Though I’m pretty sure all that running up and down buildings was pure effects.**

Darcy laughed. **Look up parkour on YouTube. It’ll blow your mind.**

Some time later her phone chimed again. It was from Clint. **Why is Steve asking me if I know how to do parkour??!**


	13. They call it FUBAR for a reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> November. In Siberia. What could _possibly_ go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly I owe an apology to everyone that this update took so long. I wrote myself in a corner and then life, cycling, and work ganged up on me, leaving little time for writing. By the time I was starting to have time to write again with any regularity Winter Soldier had been released and I ended up spending a lot of time staring at my Google Doc with chapter 13 going "Well shit, now what do I do??" 
> 
> It took some time, but I finally managed to convince myself that I should just keep writing and figure it out later rather than scrapping the whole thing (which I almost did).
> 
> I owe a great thanks to [LaBelleIzzy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LaBelleIzzy/pseuds/LaBelleIzzy) who beta'd for me at the drop of a hat and with and incredibly quick turn around. <3 Thank you.

Darcy shivered and shoved her hands further in her winter coat pockets. Huddled in their own cold weather gear Steve, Clint, and Sitwell looked equally uncomfortable. Natasha, however, was wearing a lighter parka than anyone else in the van and looked comfortable in the front passenger seat.

“Siberia.” muttered Darcy. “Why did it have to be Siberia?”

“It’s part of the bad guy manifesto.” said Clint from his place in the driver’s seat as he drove down the dark, poorly kept road. “I think it’s written in to their union contract. ‘Have base in remote freezing place’. It keeps the trespassers down.”

Natasha swatted her partner. “It’s because there’s a lot of territory up here that isn’t closely monitored. Here, the Mongolian steppes, and some parts of the South American jungle are prime real estate… If you’re in the market to try and overthrow the world’s governments.” 

“This is one Bond villain away from becoming a really bad cliche.” replied Darcy. She gave Steve a side-long grin, which he returned.

“That’ll do, Agent Lewis.” said Sitwell with a stern look. “We’re in the field, a little professionalism if you please.”

Darcy opened her mouth to retort but thought better of it when she caught Sitwell’s warning glance. Instead she pulled her briefing packet out for a last minute review. 

“Hey, boss?” She flipped to the satellite imagery HQ Operations used to plan the mission and passed it to Sitwell. “If the weapons plant is here,” she poked a marked point on the map. “And we’re setting up the mobile command post here,” she touched a second marked point. “Why are we setting the extraction point here?” She prodded the third point, which was due east from the weapons plant, and north from the command post position.

Steve leaned across Sitwell to take a better look at the map.

Darcy continued. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for the extraction point to _be_ the field command post? Or at least be in line with the command post?”

Sitwell shook his head. “Not necessarily. We’ve used that structure in past ops, but mostly due to terrain limitations. If things get hot at the weapons plant and our team has to fall back for extraction under fire, we don’t want them to lead a hostile strike team back to our command post. The van has some basic shielding from small arms fire, but if Hydra has any heavy caliber weapons, or one of the Chitauri tech rifles? We’d be Swiss cheese.”

Steve nodded in agreement. 

Darcy looked at the map again. “Okay, that makes sense, but what if we moved the command post to here?” She tapped an alternate position, about a kilometer closer to the extraction point. “Looking at the satellite and topography? I think HQ ops isn’t taking the weather into account, because there’s about a foot more snow now than there was when we left HQ. If they calculated our extraction on being able to drive on these roads at more than twenty miles an hour, we’re hosed.”

From the drivers seat Clint called back. “I think our rookie has a point. Some of these roads aren’t paved and this van isn’t exactly a precision machine.”

Steve and Sitwell considered the map. After a moment Steve nodded at Sitwell.

“I agree with Agent Lewis. The alternate position for the command post still has you in range, keeps you out of our exit path, and puts you closer to the extraction coordinates. Which, with the way this snow is coming down, might be a good thing.”

Sitwell passed the map back to Darcy. “Mark the coordinates of the new command post point on our map, send them by uplink to HQ, and make sure that the strike team in the back van gets them too. Good thinking, Agent.”

Darcy flashed her superior officer a quick smile and got to work uploading the new information to HQ and to the team in the second van.

“We’re about to turn off the main road, so hold on to your butts.” said Clint.

Darcy clung to her seat; their route had them traversing mostly questionably paved roads and some ancient gravel roads that hadn’t seen maintenance in at least a dozen years. After several minutes of lurching back and forth Clint brought the vehicle to a stop and set the emergency brake. 

Clint swung out of the driver’s seat and into the back of the van. “Alright; this is where we get out. Upload your new coordinates into the GPS. We’ll radio you when we’re in place and ready to start our approach.” He grabbed his bow case as he moved to the rear doors and let himself out into the snowy cold. Natasha followed, and Steve picked up his shield as he made his way out after the spies. 

Darcy grabbed Steve’s free hand as he passed. “Watch your back.”

The corner of his mouth curved up in a smile and he nodded his head, business-like. “You watch yours.” 

Steve stepped out of the van and shut the doors behind him, pounding once on the closed door to signal they were secure. 

Sitwell gave Darcy a curious look. “You making friends with Captain Rogers?”

She shrugged. “Someone told him I’m a font of wisdom for all things pop culture. He started asking me about my favorite movies.” 

He nodded and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Better you, than Stark. Move up. You’re navigating.” 

Darcy settled herself at shotgun and radioed back to the following van to confirm the new coordinates. Sitwell put the van into gear and began a slow progress. While Sitwell drove, she monitored com traffic from the strike team. The mobile command unit and the strike team should both be in place by a few hours after dusk. The strike would take place in the early hours of the morning. 

She watched the snow drift down in the darkness, masking their trail. When they reached their destination Sitwell cut the engine and went to speak to the agent driving the second vehicle. Darcy moved back to the comms terminal to start booting the computers up.

Sitwell slipped back into the van with a gust of cold air and a light flurry of snow. “Agent Prescott and I are going to go set the tripwires and motion sensors. Lock the van when I leave. The all clear when we get back is ‘Phil sent me’.”

Darcy gave him a casual salute. “Got it, boss.”

He picked up a rucksack of equipment and let himself back out. Darcy locked the doors behind him before switching her comms frequency to Sitwell’s channel for a moment.

“Hey boss?”

“Yes, Agent Lewis?”

“Do you want the MRE that’s pretending to be stew, or do you want the MRE pretending to be curry when you get back?”

There was a put upon sigh. “Curry please, but only if it’s the chicken one.”

“Got it. I’m running both comms channels through my terminal, I’ll let you know if the strike team runs into anything. Lewis out.” 

Darcy busied herself using the limited tools at hand to heat herself a tasteless MRE meal to quiet her growling stomach. “Come work for a super secret covert agency, Coulson said. It’ll be fun, he said. Coulson, if you weren’t dead, I’d call you a lying liar who lies. This is not fun. This is cold. It’s cold with crappy food.”

She’d just finished her meal when Steve’s voice came across the com.

“This is Captain Rogers.”

“Reading you loud and clear, Captain,” answered Darcy.

“We’re about half a kilometer out from being in position. Specialist Barton is looking for something to climb to see if he can get eyes on the target.”

“ETA to position?” 

There was a short pause and Clint’s voice came into the conversation. “About five minutes. Agent Lewis, can you patch Sitwell in? I’ve got eyes on the prize and I’m seeing a _lot_ more activity down there than our surveillance indicated there’d be.”

Darcy cursed quietly under her breath. “Give me half a minute. He’s in the field with Prescott setting up our perimeter.”

“Copy that.” Clint said.

Darcy’s fingers flew over her controls as she radioed to Sitwell. “Boss, I’m patching Specialist Barton through to your channel. He’s got new intel on our target.”

“Understood.” Sitwell replied.

“Alright, everyone’s on this line, Agent Barton, you’re live.”

“Copy. I’m in position for observation. Our intel suggested a security force of ten to fifteen guards. I’m seeing at least that many just milling around outside. So either our intel is way off, or something’s going down.” Clint reported.

“What about other personnel?” Sitwell asked.

“From the exterior I can’t tell.” Clint paused. “They’re moving weapons out of the building and loading an old Russian military truck. I can’t say for certain, but I think they’re moving product for sale.”

Steve interrupted. “We can’t let them ship those. If we stop those weapons here it means we don’t have to trace them later, and it means they won’t end up in the wrong hands.”

“I want to agree with you Captain.” said Sitwell. “But we’re running a small op here. I don’t think we have the manpower for you to stage an assault if there are that many extra guards. I’m going to have to ask you to let that truck leave. Barton?”

“Yessir?”

“Are you close enough that you can tag that truck with a tracker? If you can tag the truck, or better yet the shipment, we can upload the tracking data to HQ and they can dispatch another unit to take care of it.”

“I’d need to move about half a klick to the west. The cover isn’t great, but if I can get there I’ll have a better angle for putting a tracker on the truck.”

Steve spoke up. “If we wrap our op up quickly enough we’ll still be the closest action team. I think we should go after the truck if we can.”

“Understood, Captain.” said Sitwell. “If your team is at full strength when you’re done with the base, we’ll reconvene and send you back out after the truck. Barton, I want you to move into position, take Romanoff with you for backup. Once the truck is tagged move back to the strike team and wait for the go hour.”

There were various sounds of assent from Steve, Clint, and Natasha. Darcy listened a moment longer and switched back to a dedicated line to Sitwell. 

“Lewis?”

“Yeah boss?”

“We’re just about done out here. We’re heading back in. Let me know if Barton places that tracker before I’m back.”

“Roger that.”

Darcy settled back in her seat and listened to Clint give caustic updates as he moved in to position.

“A little less talk there Agent Barton.” said Steve at one point.

“I’m doin’ this so we _don’t_ have a lot more action, Cap.” retorted Clint, but he fell silent after his rejoinder. 

Darcy snorted. She was reaching for a thermos of coffee when she was startled by a fist thudding against the side of the van. Her heart leaped in her chest and her hand dropped to the pistol strapped to her thigh when she heard Sitwell call out.

“Phil sent me.”

“Fuckin’-a.” she muttered as she unlocked the door.

Sitwell and Prescott clambered in and shut the door behind them.

“We’ve got a perimeter set. It should be enough to let us know if anything bigger than a squirrel starts moving out there. What’s Barton’s position?”

“He was nearly there just a minute ago. The Captain told him to pipe down. Barton kept bitching about it being cold.”

Prescott scoffed. “Barton _must_ be cold if he’s only bitching about it.”

“Well he did make a pretty bad Elvis reference that I think went over the Captain’s head.” She said, pouring herself coffee from the thermos.

Sitwell reached past her to snag the thermos and said, “At least he isn’t bored. Once he starts singing you generally have about a fifteen minute window.”

Darcy gave her mentor a skeptical look. “A fifteen minute window for _what_?”

“To hope the action to starts and gives him something to do to. Or for him to decide its time to start testing gravity. For a man who can’t fly Agent Barton is oddly fixated with testing physics from high places.”

She shook her head with wry amusement and Sitwell and Prescott began swapping increasingly unlikely stories of things Clint had jumped off of, usually while being shot at or shooting something. 

“This is Barton to command.” 

Darcy answered. “This is command. Go ahead.”

“The tracker’s in place. I went ahead and tagged the truck and one of the crates they’re shipping out.”

“Good move Hawkeye. I’ll upload your trackers data and your observations to HQ for action. Go ahead and move back to your team. You’ll move in at oh-hundred as planned.”

“Copy that. Barton out.”

Sitwell looked up from his coffee and MRE. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were capable of professional radio exchanges.”

Darcy glared at him over her own mug. “Watch it boss! Or I’ll start radioing the Captain to tell him raunchy jokes.”

Sitwell shuddered. “Please don’t. You’ll only encourage Barton to heckle too and then it’ll all just end in tears and bloodshed. And paperwork. Lots of paperwork. Which, as my minion, I will make _you_ do.”

“Hey now, we talked about this, boss. I am not a minion. I am at the very least an apprentice. Minions are expendable.”

“Agent Lewis, if you start radioing Captain America to tell him raunchy jokes while we’re on an op you _will_ be expendable once Fury hears about it. Catch my drift?”

“Loud and clear, sir.”

Prescott started to chuckle, which quickly turned into a cough, when Darcy and Sitwell both glared at him.

They passed the next hour in the van playing penny ante poker. Clint radioed in twice. Once to let them know the extra guards had left with the trucks carrying the new weapons, and a second time to ask Sitwell if he was getting hazard pay for “freezing his nutsack off in a snow drift”.

Steve cut in to chastise Clint for being sexist. “Equal pay, Barton. I hear it’s a thing. It isn’t fair for the men to get hazard pay for that while the women on the squad are left out. Hazard pay for freezing our asses off though, that’s completely fair.”

Darcy almost swallowed her tongue while Prescott snorted with laughter.

Sitwell simply rolled his eyes. “You don’t get hazard pay until you start getting shot at.”

“So, in another twenty minutes then?” Clint retorted.

“Give or take,” confirmed Darcy.

Clint grumbled a bit more before subsiding into silence.

About five minutes before the field team began to move in on their target Prescott nodded to Sitwell.

“Time for me to move the other van to the extraction site. See you two in a couple of hours?”

Sitwell made a shooing motion with his hands. “Just reset the perimeter alarms on your way out.”

Prescott waved in acknowledgment before letting himself out into the snowy night. 

Darcy turned to her mentor. “So what are my chances for getting some time off for Thanksgiving?”

Sitwell blinked. “I always forget you’re one of the odd ones.” At Darcy’s puzzled look he clarified. “You have actually have a family and the family you have isn’t trying to kill you.”

“I’m normally the one having to restrain fratricidal impulses, not the other way ‘round.” Sitwell arched an eyebrow at her. “Hey, I’ve got FOUR brothers. And they come in sets. If that isn’t enough to inspire a girl to murder I don’t know what is.”

He chuckled. “Point. You’ve been putting in a lot of time on this project. I think I can see clear to giving you some PTO for the holiday.”

“Thanks, boss. My mom’s been calling me practically every other day. I didn’t know how much longer I could put her off with the ‘I need to ask my supervisor.’ line.”

“What’s your cover when you go home? I’m sure Coulson helped you set up something solid.”

“Officially I work as media analyst for an advertising firm. I help build strategies for clients to use social media tools to reach hip new clientele. We built my cover so it was actually connected to one of SHIELD’s shell agencies. Coulson put me under the Compendium Advertising umbrella. I have business cards and everything, and the number forwards to my mobile.” Darcy shrugged. “On the one hand I feel bad that I lie to my folks. On the other hand I don’t know that they’d understand what I did even if I did work in advertising.”

Sitwell made a huffing sound of amusement. “Your parents aren’t techies?”

“Oh god no. None of my brothers are either. I mean they can all use a computer and they have smart phones, but media immersion has always been my schtick.” She checked the clock. “Two minutes to go-time boss. You want me to check in with the troops?”

He nodded. “Let’s do that. We’ll hold position here until they’re mopping up and we’ll move out once they set the charges to blow the building.”

Darcy hit the switch for her com to open a limited line to Steve. “Mobile unit to Captain Rogers.”

His voice came back across the connection. “Rogers here. We’re moving into position and waiting for our go order.” There was a short pause. “Please tell me we get to have a go order. I’m getting awful tired of freezing my ass off.”

Sitwell snorted and rolled his eyes before he nodded his head.

“Good news, Cap!” Darcy drawled. “You can stop freezing your ass off and start trying not to get it shot off. I’m bringing the tactical cameras live now. You have permission to engage the target.”

“Understood, command. Rogers out.”

Darcy quickly switched the receiver from private coms to open and toggled her displays to show the small video feeds that each agent wore so her screens were filled with small squares showing the different vantage points as the team moved forward to attack.. She glanced over her shoulder to find her boss doubled over, his glasses dangling from one hand, shaking with poorly restrained laughter. She cocked an eyebrow at him.

Sitwell swiped the heel of his hand across his eyes and put his glasses back on. “Lewis, somedays I don’t know what Phil saw in you, and other days I think he knew exactly what he was going to get recruiting you.”

“Which was?” her tone expressing skepticism. 

“Exactly what every tactical team needs, someone who can tell Captain America that he now has permission to get his ass shot off and make it sound like a good thing.”

She shook her head. “Well just keep that in mind when its time for my annual review and security clearance audit.” Darcy checked her monitors. “Time to rock and roll boss. They’re about to storm the castle.”

“Think they’ll make it?” Sitwell settled in at his own monitor.

Darcy sniped back. “It’d better not take a miracle, that’s all I’m sayin’.”

Silence fell between mentor and trainee as they used their digital tools to virtually watch the backs of their team as they stormed the building.

At an intersection of two hallways the team came under heavy fire. “Barton!” yelled Steve. “I need that corridor clear!”

“On it.” There was a flurry of motion from Clint’s camera that Darcy couldn’t follow. The feed from Natasha’s showed Clint tumbling out from cover, a flash-bang grenade in one hand. Suddenly it flew down the hall, hit a wall, and ricocheted down the other hall. Clint dove back under cover with a poorly muffled, “Boo-yah, motherfuckers!” as the flash-bang went off.

Darcy watched the field team as they cleared the building, targeting the guards. There were a half dozen workers in the assembly area where the weapons were built. They, to a man, threw themselves on the ground, screaming that they surrendered in three different languages. She listened as Steve, in what she was starting to think of as his ‘Captain’ persona, directed members of the tactical team in securing the prisoners.

“Command, this is Rogers.”

“Go ahead, Captain.” replied Sitwell.

“We’ve got six unarmed individuals for questioning but they aren’t dressed for the cold and I don’t really think we want to wait around here for them to put on warm coats and another pair of socks.”

“If they’re wearing pants and long sleeved shirts it’ll have to do. As long as you’re moving they’ll be cold, but they won’t freeze on the way to the extraction point.”

“Copy that, sir. Demolitions is setting charges around the perimeter and on the assembly equipment. Do we need to grab any evidence?”

“Negative, Captain. We’ve got full visual and we’re recording. Our eggheads should be able to get something from the images and the other weapons we’ve already recovered.”

Steve made an affirmative noise and returned to directing his team.

Darcy turned to Sitwell. “So is it time for us to amscray, boss?”

Sitwell watched the feeds from the field team a moment more before he nodded. “Just as soon as they’re clear of the building.”

“Gotcha.”

They worked in relative silence, relaying information to their team for another five minutes. Steve eventually radioed back. “Command, the charges are set and we’re on our way out. We’ll see you at the rendezvous in about forty minutes.”

Sitwell replied. “Copy that, Captain.” He turned to Darcy. “I’m going out to break our perimeter down. Let me know if they blow the building before I get back. I want to be moving as soon as possible.” He let himself out of the van and shut the door behind him.

Darcy continued to listen on the coms as the team began their trek to the extraction point, but busied herself by stowing loose gear and preparing to power down the systems they wouldn’t need while driving.

“Mobile, this is Barton.”

“Go ahead.” said Darcy.

“Detonation in thirty seconds and counting.”

“Copy that Hawkeye. Got any marshmallows?”

She heard Clint snicker. “Sorry Lewis, I must have left them in my other tactical vest.”

“Spoilsport.”

Natasha’s voice cut in to the conversation. “You don’t need marshmallows for an explosion, just some good vodka to sip while you watch the flames.”

“Natasha, next summer remind me to teach you the joys of s’mores and whiskey. Fire, booze, and sugar. It’s like a trifecta of awesomeness.” replied Darcy.

Steve interrupted. “Detonation in five, four, three, two, one... And, that’s a wrap, folks.”

“Thanks for the intel, Cap. We’ll see you at the extraction. Give us a shout if anything happens.”

Darcy was about to radio Sitwell to tell him the base had been successfully destroyed, when the door to the van opened and he stepped back in.

“Let’s get this shut down and get on the road. I want you driving.”

Startled, Darcy gave her mentor a puzzled look. “I thought you didn’t trust my driving, boss.”

The smile he gave her was strained. “Got to build trust somehow, Lewis.”

Darcy shrugged and finished powering down her terminal before she climbed in the driver seat. She fiddled with the dashboard GPS unit as she waited for Sitwell to take his seat. She put her hand on the key, and turned to face him. “Ready, boss?”

“As I’ll ever be. Just don’t drive us off the road or into a tree. Barton would never let us live it down.”

They drove in silence, Darcy concentrating on the road and Sitwell seemingly lost in thought, slouched low in his seat. Twice she missed a turn in the dark and snow and had to turn around.

Clint radioed in after they’d been on the road nearly an hour. “Cap made us take a shortcut so we didn’t freeze our captives to death. We just made the rendezvous. Where are you?”

Sitwell tapped his ear piece. “We’re about a mile out. We should be there soon.”

“Copy that, I’ll let the pilot know.”

Darcy glanced over to ask Sitwell a question when there was a sharp cracking sound as the windshield on the passenger side splintered immediately followed by a pained shout. Reacting more than thinking Darcy stomped on the brakes. 

Sitwell was slumped over, clutching his left shoulder. “Drive!” he screamed.

She jerked her foot off the brake and stepped on the gas, hard. The wheels of the van spun in the snow before finding traction. As they sped down the road she could hear the sound of bullets striking the van. Sparing a hand she turned her communicator on only to be rewarded by a screech of static and white noise. “They’re blocking our radio, boss!” Her voice was strained and threaded with panic.

Panting with pain Sitwell cursed in Spanish. “Just keep driving. Lay on the horn when you can see the plane. They’ll figure out we’re coming in hot pretty quick.”

The road curved gently to the left over a small rise. As they crested the hill at almost fifty miles an hour Darcy felt a surge of relief to see the SHIELD plane in the clearing below. Relief turned to terror as the van lost traction and begin to slide off the road. The world canted sidewise as the top heavy vehicle veered off the road and rolled twice before slamming sidelong into a tree..

Dazed, Darcy was amazed that they’d managed to land right side up. She shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears and reorient herself. She looked over to find her mentor bleeding heavily from the shoulder and unconscious. A glance behind them showed the rear half of the van caved in from the impact. It was clear she wouldn’t be able to get the van moving again.

For a moment she considered staying in the van, certain that someone from the SHIELD plane would have seen them lose control of the van and come to investigate. She was reaching for her seatbelt release when another bullet came through the windshield and passed between the front seats. The already fractured glass worked in her favor, whoever was shooting couldn’t see well enough to make a kill shot. 

Heart pounding, she unfastened her seatbelt and crouched as low as she could between the front seats to release Sitwell from his seat. He slumped forward with a groan. Another bullet smashed through the windshield, striking the center of the drivers seat. Darcy fought down her rising panic. “Boss! Boss!” 

Sitwell groggily came to. “Lewis, leave me. Run.”

She gritted her teeth. “No. We have some tree and brush cover for at least part of the way. If you lean on me we can make it.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion Agent. That was an order.” Sitwell slurred.

“It’s a stupid order. Someone’s going to come up from the plane. They have to.” She squeezed herself between the dash and his knees, fumbling for the door release. “If this door opens we get out and we get moving.” 

“Going to write you up for insubordination.”

“You have to live if you want to do that.”

He said something unflattering in Spanish as she yanked on the door handle and offered up a desperate prayer that the door would open. To her complete surprise the door swung open. She squirmed past Sitwell and landed in the snow. Offering another prayer that the door would last as cover for at least a few seconds she unholstered her pistol, grabbed Sitwell, and began tugging him out of the van. She slung his good right arm around her shoulders and took a deep breath.

They stumbled out from the cover of the door, crouched low, and began to run down the hillside; veering back and forth from one clump of trees to another clump of bushes. Darcy was certain they were being shot at.

As they reached the bottom of the hill, and where their cover ran out, Sitwell was leaning less on Darcy. “When we get to the bottom of the hill. Run. Just run.” he said.

From behind the last small copse of trees they began running all out, trying to cover the fifty yards to the plane as fast as possible. Darcy could see Steve, shield out, leading a squad of agents across the field to their position when Sitwell tripped over something in the snow and sent them sprawling face down. 

Darcy recovered first, scrambling forward in the snow for her pistol. Sitwell tried to push himself up and collapsed forward with a groan. She whipped her pistol up and looked behind them, trying to see any sign of an enemy. “Come boss. Gotta get up. No time for a nap.” Reaching down she tried to help him to his feet. He got to his knees and folded again, landing face up.

She spared a moment to glance back at the plane. Steve was clearly outpacing the rest of the squad, but even so Darcy could tell she and Sitwell would be sitting ducks for at least another few seconds. She reached down and with a mental apology grabbed Sitwell’s good arm and began walking backwards, dragging her mentor along. 

Darcy saw a small explosion of snow from a bullet striking the snow beside her and heard Steve bellow from behind. 

“Get DOWN!” 

She dropped Sitwell’s arm and flattened herself to the ground. As she fell, she felt a searing pain in her left thigh. 

Steve rushed past and took up a crouched defensive position at Sitwell’s feet, using his shield as cover.

“What the hell happened?”

Her vision swimming from the pain, Darcy had to blink a couple of times before she realized Steve was talking to her. “I don’t know. One minute we were fine, the next minute we were getting shot at. Sitwell was shot through the windshield. Shoulder I think.”

“What a goddamn FUBAR.” he cursed. 

There was a sharp metal on metal sound as a bullet struck his shield. “When the rest of the squad gets here they’ll lay down cover fire and we’ll pull back.”

There was a high pitched ringing in Darcy’s ears and her vision began going grey around the edges. Clinically a corner of her mind diagnosed it as shock. 

“Oh. Okay. Good. Yes, good.”

Steve looked at her sharply. “Are you injured?

Darcy considered the question and fought to find her words.

“I think I’ve been shot in the leg.”

Steve made an abortive attempt to move closer to check on her, but hunched behind his shield as their position was peppered with more small arms fire. He swore creatively and suggested that their assailants do several anatomically improbable things.

“Talk to me Lewis. Where are you shot?”

She frowned and tried to pinpoint her pain. 

“Left thigh. About half way between my knee and my hip.”

“Through and through or did it hit the bone?”

She whimpered. “I can’t tell.”

Steve cursed again.

“Why don’t any of the history books mention you cuss like a sailor?” Darcy mused.

He snorted. “Why the fuck does everyone think I just say ‘Gosh’ when I’m getting shot at?”

The rest of Steve’s squad arrived swarming around Sitwell and Darcy, trying to stay low and avoid getting shot themselves, while they fired off rounds up hill into the trees. Clint threw himself on the ground beside Steve and began unfolding a sniper rifle with practiced motions.

Steve was incredulous. “A gun?”

Darcy struggled to lift her head, despite the medic by her shoulder telling her to be still. 

“Desperate times, desperate measures. I can’t draw laying on the ground and the only cover out here is your shield. Let’s hope these assholes keep shooting like Storm Troopers.” he caught Steve’s questioning look. Clint rolled his eyes. “Star Wars. Make a note.” He pulled the rifle tight to his shoulder. “When I say when, move your shield.”

She saw Clint settle his eye to his scope. 

“Shield left.” 

Steve moved as directed and Clint fired four shots in rapid succession.

“Cover!”

Steve whipped the shield back in front of them. 

“Shield right.” said Clint and Steve pulled his shield to the side again. Clint fired five times, paused and fired twice more. “Alright. That should have put the fear of god in them. We’re clear.”

Steve stood and offered the other man a hand. “Let’s get our wounded back to the plane and get in the air.”

In a flurry of activity Darcy found herself in a two man chair carry between two agents as they trotted double time back to the plane. Every jolt sent spikes of pain through her leg that made her vision swim. As they rushed onto the plane, she felt her consciousness slip away entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't hate me for the cliffhanger. Hopefully the time between chapters won't be too long this time.


	14. Moving on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy wakes up in the hospital, goes home for Thanksgiving, and questions Tony Stark's poor life choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My muse has been a bitch lately and my writing has slowed to a glacial pace. This has taken me far, far longer than I'd hoped.

Darcy achieved consciousness in fits and starts. Disoriented by the ceiling being stark white rather than the pale blue of her apartment she struggled to piece her last conscious memories together. When she blinked her eyes had that horrible feeling of being both gummy and gritty, a sure sign she'd fallen asleep with her contacts in, and her entire body ached. It was the aching that triggered her memory. She shifted in bed, trying to sit up and look around. Her movement attracted the attention of the person in the chair beside her bed, Steve.

She tried to speak but her voice came out as a rusty croak. Steve looped an arm around her back and helped her sit up. Her leg throbbed in objection to the movement and she registered that the full body aching was worse across her shoulder and ribs where her seatbelt had kept her secured when the van rolled.

“Here,” he said, passing her a cup with a bendy straw. “Have some water, it’ll help.”

Darcy took a greedy glup. “Thank you. What happened? Where are we?”

“We’re not sure what happened. Best guess is you and Sitwell ran into a Hydra patrol on your way to the rendezvous. And you are currently enjoying the hospitality of SHIELD medical in Berlin. You were shot.”

She gave Steve a cross look. “I remember that part. How bad was it?”

“I’m not the doctor, but they said it was a through and through wound. No damage to your femur, but it nicked a big vein so you lost a lot of blood. You’ve been out for about eighteen hours.”

“How’s Sitwell?” 

“He’s down the hall. He wasn’t quite so lucky. When he got shot the bullet hit bone and caused some complications. He was in surgery for a while, but they say he’ll make a full recovery.”

Darcy sagged with relief and then winced as the motion made her everything hurt.

“Hey, let me go get a doctor to check on you. They were worried you might have a concussion or something from when the van rolled.” He patted her shoulder and left the room.

A few minutes later a doctor and two nurses came in to check her vitals and ask how she was feeling. The doctor explained that the full body soreness was to be expected after the crash, but that she’d been lucky and suffered no serious injuries from the crash directly. The doctor also told her she was to stay off her feet as much as possible for the next month to allow her leg ample time to heal.

“Assuming you continue to improve, I can see fit to release you in another day or two.” the doctor told her. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”

Darcy ran a hand through her hair and grimaced. “Can I get a hair tie? My hair’s gross and I don’t want it in my face. Also my back up glasses. Clint, um, Agent Barton should know where they are. I need to get my contacts out.”

One of the nurses smiled and nodded. “I’ll be right back with those for you.”

By the time the nurse returned with a hair tie, a brush, and a glasses case Darcy had finger combed the worst of the snarls from her hair. Using the brush, Darcy finished untangling her hair and with sure hands french braided everything out of her face. With her hair back and her contacts out she began to feel limp with exhaustion. 

The nurse brought a tray with a bland meal of poached chicken and over cooked vegetables, and promised Darcy a pain pill if she would eat at least half of the offered food. She managed slightly less than half of her meal before the nurse took pity and gave her a painkiller. As she slipped into unconsciousness, her last wakeful thought was disappointment that Steve hadn’t returned.

Darcy was released three days later. Natasha pushed the wheelchair out of the hospital to the curb where Clint was waiting with a nondescript black SUV. Darcy started to use her crutches to stand and hobble to the vehicle when Steve appeared beside her. 

“You’re not supposed to be walking yet.” He said, and scooped Darcy up in a bridal carry. 

Darcy squawked and flailed ineffectively at Steve. Clint smirked and darted forward to take her crutches away. Steve gently set her in the back seat of the SUV, fastened her seatbelt, and shut the door; ignoring Darcy’s protests that she wasn’t a child or that injured. When Steve got in the back of the SUV on the other side Darcy glared at him. 

“It was five feet, I could have made it.” Darcy said, her expression muleish.

Natasha climbed into the front passenger seat and said, “Just because you _can_ do something, doesn’t mean you have to.”

“I’m sure you’ve had worse and didn’t have Captain America carry you to the car.” Retorted Darcy.

Natasha twisted in her seat and looked at Darcy. “It’s your first field injury. If they’re able to your team is supposed to take care of you. That’s their job. _Your_ job is to take it gracefully for as long as you can.”

Clint hopped up in the drivers seat. “That’s right kid. Also it means the first round is on you when we get back to the states.”

Darcy glared at the pair of spies and tried not to think about how the words ‘your team’ warmed her. She knew that due to their special nature she wouldn’t always be partnered with Clint, Natasha, and Steve, but she liked the idea that they were ‘her’ team. She finally settled for rolling her eyes and throwing her hands up in defeat

“Fine! But only the first round.” After a few minutes Darcy finally let her curiosity get the best of her. “Where are we going?”

“Airfield.” Steve answered. “We’re on a transport back to New York.”

Darcy nodded. “What about Sitwell?”

“He’ll be on a plane home next week,” said Natasha. “He’s not ready to be moved just yet. He did tell me to tell you that you’re on leave until New Years.”

“Ooookay...” Darcy drawled. “Did he say if I can go home for Thanksgiving and what my cover is supposed to be for a gunshot wound to the leg?”

“Does your family have to know it was a gunshot? Will some unrelated accident do as cover?” Natasha wanted to know.

Darcy considered the questions. “As long as no one sees my thigh and someone in medical can give me a knee brace I can probably pass it off as having slipped somewhere and sprained my knee.”

Natasha nodded. “Do that then. We’ll get you a knee brace before you head home.”

Darcy dozed for much of the flight from Berlin to New York, still exhausted and achy from her ordeal. When they arrived in New York Clint and Natasha took one of the SUV’s and went their own way, leaving Steve to help Darcy home. He carried her to another SUV and drove her back to her small apartment. 

“I can get a cab you know,” she told Steve.

“I promised Natasha I’d get you home.” As though that was all the explanation required.

Darcy sighed. Usually she loved being pampered, but there was being pampered and then there was being smothered. She was trying to not be ungrateful, but it was starting to feel more like smothering than pampering.

At her apartment Steve helped her out of the van and let her balance on her crutches while he got her bag. She took a few experimental steps forward toward the front door, being careful to keep her weight off her injured leg.

When Steve tried to pick her up again she balanced on one leg and brandished one of her crutches at him to fend him off.

“Back off Captain.” She snapped. “I’m not going to have someone waiting on me and if I can’t figure out stairs I’m going to have a problem. If you want to help go get the door or something.”

Steve pursed his lips and gave her his very best ‘Captain America is very disappointed in your life choices’ face. 

Darcy shook her head. “Nope. The puppy eyes aren’t going to work on me Cap. I’ve got four brothers. I’m immune.”

“I liked it better when you called me ‘Steve’.” he said with a sigh and a half hearted smile.

Darcy tried to ignore the way it felt like her heart turned over or the desire to apologize for being cranky. Instead she reached in to her purse and fished out her keys. She handed them over with what she hoped was an apologetic smile.

“Can you please get the door and help me with my bag Steve?”

He returned her smile seeming to accept her peace offering for what it was. He stuck to her right side like a second shadow as she made her way up the stairs to the front door.

In the lobby Steve looked around, searching for something. “No elevator?” 

She shook her head as she made her across the lobby and began going up the first flight of stairs.

“No. It’s one of the reasons why the rent is affordable. I also figured it was a good way to get some extra exercise.”

They paused at the third floor landing for Darcy to catch her breath.

Steve hefted her bag from one shoulder to the other. “Not that I’m suggesting you can’t take care of yourself, but how are you going to get groceries?” His expression was earnest and he seemed concerned that she might starve if left alone in her sixth floor apartment.

Darcy patted his arm. “You’re sweet. Thankfully I have an extensive library of delivery food menus; everything from apple pie to sushi. And if I want to actually cook I can get groceries delivered.”

Steve looked somewhat mollified and dropped the issue as they resumed their slow trek up the stairs. 

In her apartment Darcy asked Steve to leave her bag on the foot of the bed. “I’ll unpack later,” she told him. “Right now all I want to do is order a pizza, put on my sweats, and watch something brainless on TV.”

“Are you sure you don’t need anything?”

She smiled. “I’m sure. I’ll be around for another week or so, then I’m going home for Thanksgiving. If you’ve got some time you should stop by. We can watch Indiana Jones.”

Steve returned her smile. “I’d like that. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days?” He turned to go and paused with his hand on the knob. “I don’t think anyone’s said this, but what you did; saving Sitwell, that was a remarkable act of bravery.”

Darcy blinked in surprise. “I just tried to do the right thing.”

The smile Steve gave her made her feel like she’d just turned on the sun. “Exactly.” He replied, and let himself out, closing the door. 

Darcy stared at the door a moment more before she shook her head and went to find the pizza menu for her favorite delivery. Being shot had to at least be good for a pizza with double cheese and extra olives.

\--

With her extended leave to recover Darcy decided to leave for her parents the Monday before Thanksgiving. By lunch time Tuesday she was abjectly regretting her decision. 

She loved her parents and her brothers but it was difficult to talk about her pretend job convincingly when just a few short weeks before she’d been getting shot at while trying to save her SO’s life. Reconciling the two was more challenging than she’d expected. She made a note to talk to Natasha about taking lessons in subterfuge. It was one thing to lie to her folks about where she was Saturday night when she was a teenager sneaking out with Amanda Parrish, it was a horse of an entirely different color when she was lying about her career and the people she worked with.

Over lunch on Wednesday she slipped and mentioned Steve. Kicking herself mentally she’d had to do some fancy verbal footwork, telling her family that Steve was an external consultant who handled IT security. Darcy offered up a small prayer that her family would never meet him, because mister six foot tall and ripped looked like no one’s stereotype of an IT consultant.

Her small blessing was that her knee brace and self deprecating story of falling in the shower at home were taken at face value, though she was on the receiving end of some good natured ribbing from her younger brothers.

The holiday itself passed in a blur of family and food. After the obligatory enormous meal Darcy slipped away upstairs for a few minutes to call Jane, Erik, Caleb, Clint, and Natasha to wish them each a happy Thanksgiving. Her calls all went to voicemail and she left messages. She scrolled through her numbers to see if there was anyone else who would appreciate a call and paused when she reached Steve’s name. After a moments hesitation she punched dial.

After the third ring she was convinced her call would go to voicemail. She readied herself to leave a cheerful message when he answered the phone, sounding slightly out of breath.

“Hello?”

“Oh! Hi Steve, it’s Darcy.”

“Is everything okay?” Concerned in his voice.

“Peachy keen Steve-o. I was just calling to wish you a happy Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, thank you.” 

Darcy frowned, Steve sounded distant and a bit lost.

“Everything okay? You sound a little out of it.”

There was a pause before he finally answered. “I had turkey with the trimmings with Clint and Natasha. Did you know Clint can cook?”

She chuckled. “He’s cooked for me before. For a guy who grew up in a circus he has a remarkable repertoire of american comfort foods. His mac and cheese is amazing. But seriously, you okay?”

There was a longer pause. “Did you know the last Thanksgiving I spent was on the edge of enemy territory? We risked a fire so we could heat our cans of food instead of eating them cold. “

Darcy leaned her head back and let it rest against the wall. “Shit. I’m sorry. And I recognize the utter lameness of saying I’m sorry. I hate language sometimes. That the word for apologizing is the same word for ‘I’m trying to empathize, but I can’t think of anything comforting to say.’ is really stupid.”

She heard Steve chuckle faintly. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not really, but I appreciate the sentiment. Anyway I’m sorry you’re having a rough day. Holidays suck sometimes. I’m glad you got to spend some time with Clint and Natasha. They’re good people. Scary as shit in Natasha’s case, but good people.”

Steve laughed again. “Natasha’s not scary.”

“Dude, I beg to differ. I know at least a dozen junior agents who practically piss themselves if she walks by. They’re like nervous little micro dogs.”

“Why don’t you?” Steve sounded curious.

“I guess I’m just harder to impress. I mean yeah, she’s an insanely skilled kick ass agent, but she’s also sort of my friend. I can be scared of my friends though. Take my old boss Jane, she’s got the biggest brain of anyone I’ve ever met, and I’m honest to god scared she’s either going to split the planet in half by accident or starve to death because she forgot to eat.”

“She can’t be that bad.”

“Steve, oh Steve. I love it when you’re so optimistically naive. It’s adorable. The next time Jane’s in town for a conference remind me to introduce you.”

“So, I’m adorable?”

Laughing Darcy said, “I tell you I know someone who might accidentally split the planet in half in the pursuit of scientific discovery and your takeaway is that I think you’re adorable?”

“Apparently only when I’m optimistically naive though.”

Darcy was about to retort when she heard her mother calling from downstairs. “Hey, I’ve got to run. Mom’s yelling up a storm about something downstairs. I’ll talk to you when I get back to town?”

“Sure thing, Darcy. Thanks for calling.”

She tried to infuse her voice with as much warmth as possible. “You’re welcome. Bye.”

Darcy made her way downstairs to see what her mother had been shouting about. Margaret Lewis was standing in the living room, arms crossed and face creased in a frown as she watched the TV.

“What’s up mom?”

“There’s been another terrorist attack in Europe by that person calling himself the Mandarin.”

Darcy leaned forward on her crutches. SHIELD had been gathering data on the Mandarin but that was all she knew. She assumed that some other task force was assigned to that case. “What happened?”

“They detonated an explosive in an airport.”

“Shitballs.” Darcy swore. “I bet that means all flights are canceled until further notice.”

Her father came in to the room and handed her a beer. “Fraid so pumpkin.”

Darcy took a deep swallow of her beer and grimaced. “At least I don’t have to worry about a hotel room.”

“Small favors.” Her mother agreed. “What about your job?”

“Well I doubt anyone expects me to drive back to New York from Ohio with a sprained knee. I’ll call my boss and let him know I may be stranded here till next week.”

Her parents nodded and Darcy made her excuses and took herself and her beer back upstairs. From her room she phoned Sitwell who had been released from the hospital and returned to New York earlier in the week.

“Lewis, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call on this day of gluttony and dead birds?”

“Some jackhole who’s either way too fond of seasonal citrus or culturally offensive nom de plumes bombed an airport in Europe and is threatening bombings in the states. Air travel’s suspended so I’m stuck in Ohio till further notice.”

“Well you’re officially on leave till New Year’s so it’s nothing for you to need to worry about. We’ve got another unit on that project. When you do get back though, go to medical for clearance and begin PT. You should at least see if you can get back to training by the end of the year. Happy holiday.”

The line went dead and Darcy tossed her phone on the bed. 

It took Darcy three days and four re-booked flights to finally make her way back home to New York after the holiday. She wasn’t quite sure when her parents house in Ohio stopped feeling like the center of her world, but more and more she identified ‘home’ as her closet sized studio with the questionable water stain in the bathroom and the window that suck when it was humid in the summer. 

She scheduled a follow up appointment with medical who after a bit of poking and prodding declared her ‘mostly healed’ and sent her down the hall to schedule thrice weekly physical therapy appointments. Almost as soon as she’d scheduled the first appointment Natasha called to inform Darcy their morning training sessions would resume the next week. Darcy managed to keep from groaning in dread. 

At home Darcy watched the news and became increasingly concerned about the actions of the man calling himself the Mandarin.

She phoned Sitwell again. “Aren’t we supposed to be doing something about people like him?”

“SHIELD is.” He assured. “But it’s not our unit so we don’t get the intel. It’s all level six anyway,” and he ended the call.

When she tried to complain to Clint he rolled his eyes and said “God save me from baby agents who want to save the world. Darce, compartmentalization is how SHIELD works. Just enjoy your time off and try not to strangle your physical therapist. If you’re needed, trust me, you’ll know because you’ll get a briefing packet. SHIELD’s got their fingers in a lot of pies and you won’t always get the interesting assignments.”

Because curiosity was one of her besetting sins and if there was one thing she hated was not knowing something she tried to enlist Jarvis to help her get information. The AI was apologetic when he told her that much of his processing attention was being consumed by a number of Tony’s projects. Jarvis also apologized for continuing to be unable to get back into the SHIELD systems. 

“It would appear, Agent Lewis, that SHIELD has recently upgraded a number of their security measures. With my attention focused on sirs projects, I’m afraid I’ve had little time to spend trying to circumvent their security. Sir has also been reluctant to visit any SHIELD facility where he might be able to insert my module into the system manually.”

Mid-December found Darcy frustrated with physical therapy, annoyed at Clint who’d been assigned an op in Argentina, irked with Natasha’s insistence that Darcy improve her escape in event of capture skills despite the fact Darcy had a perfectly acceptable score on her escape test, and baffled by her mentor who seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time in DC. The only person who didn’t seem to be trying to actively aggravate her was Steve. They’d fallen into the habit of eating unspeakable amounts of popcorn and watching questionable action movies on Thursday evenings. 

Darcy was having lunch out with Steve in one of the diners he liked, where the waitresses never let their coffee run out, when the tv behind the counter began flashing pictures of Tony Stark outside a hospital. 

Steve called out. “Hey, can you turn that up?”

The waitress shrugged and turned the sound on just as Tony gave his address to the world.

Eyes wide Darcy stared at Steve in shock. “Did Tony Stark just give the entire world his home address?”

Steve blinked a few times. “Yeah, he did.”

“He is so fucked.”

He nodded. “Let’s get the rest of this to go. I have a feeling I’m going to be on call.”

They flagged down their waitress, got their orders boxed, and engaged in their near habitual argument over who’s turn it was to buy lunch. Steve won.

On the street Steve offered to walk her to the subway. 

“Nah, I’m good. Go save the world. I need to get to my PT appointment anyway.”

By the time Darcy returned home from her PT session the self proclaimed Mandarin had bombed Tony Stark’s cliffside home into the bottom of the ocean. The reformed playboy, billionaire, philanthropist was missing and presumed dead.

With shaking hands she tried to access her communication line to Jarvis. She fell asleep with her chat window to Jarvis open. When she woke in the morning the window was ominously blank of any reply.

**Author's Note:**

> I lurk around tumblr at catolynwrites.tumblr.com where I mostly post random things that amuse me.


End file.
